Northern Michigan artist Margo Burian’s work has been chosen for the Glen Arbor Arts Center’s 2024-25 Outdoor Gallery exhibition, an annual, invitational exhibit. Margo’s collages were reproduced on five, 5-foot-square, weather-resistant aluminum panels created by Image 360 of Traverse City, Michigan. The panels are installed on the GAAC’s south and west exteriors walls.
The GAAC’s Outdoor Gallery competition began in 2020. The gallery is a venue for the exhibition of visual art, and features the original work of a single artist. The selected work communicates the GAAC’s spirit with fresh originality, and the panels are viewable at any time. The winning artist receives a $500 prize from the Amy L. Clark-Carels Family Fund. The metal panels are installed in May, and remain on display through April 2025. In April 2025, the GAAC will offer the 2024-25 panels in an online auction.
Go Deeper
A Conversation With The Artist
Margo Burian is a well-known painter of atmospheric landscapes, waterscapes, and historic farmsteads. The desire to communicate ideas in other media and materials isn’t new to Margo, who has been exploring the creative possibilities of collage. Margo talks about her exploration in a conversation with Sarah Bearup-Neal, GAAC gallery manager [below].
Beach Run Did you know? Whitetail deer can run at speeds of 35-40 mph on land and are expert swimmers as well, clocking in at speeds of 13-15 mph in the water.
Pebbles and Plover Did you know? Piping Plover parents will pretend to have a broken wing to fool predators into thinking they are injured. This “act” draws predators away from their nest and baby Plovers.
Royal Gardeners Did you know? Male monarch butterflies have two dark spots on their hindwings, females do not have these spots. Monarch butterflies can fly up to 3,000 miles during their fall migration.
What, The Fox! Did you know? Red and Grey Foxes are the only member of the canine family that have semi-retractable claws. Foxes have superior hearing and can hear rodents digging underground.
Who’s There? Did you know? Owl’s eyes are not “eye balls,” they are actually shaped like tubes. A group of Owls is called a Parliament.
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The 2024-2025 Outdoor Gallery exhibition panels will be created from Margo Burian’s work. Each painting will be slightly cropped to fit the 5ft x 5ft format of the panels.
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Artist's Statement
Ordinary Magic
Margo Burian
Margo writes: This group of five collages were created over an eight-week period in early 2024, and are rooted in the idea of Ordinary Magic, or delight. As human beings, we have the singular capacity to recognize beauty or “magic,” not only when confronted with grand vistas, but also in unexpected, delightful, everyday occurrences. Like catching a glimpse of a fox hunting, or hearing the soft call of an owl in the early evening.
When I was asked to exhibit in the GAAC Outdoor Gallery, my immediate response was yes. I was very drawn to the idea of creating a new body of work in collage, with some of the ideas that I’d been exploring in my sketchbook over the past year. Many of those ideas revolved around how the landscape is not only a living entity of its own accord; but is also inhabited by a vast array of sentient beings. The landscape, and creatures who inhabit it are not independent of one another, but rather interdependent for their very survival. This interconnectedness for me is nothing short of Ordinary Magic.
I am drawn to collage because of its versatility and within that versatility; the opportunity to explore ideas and materiality. More than 400 sheets of paper were used to create specific palettes for each image. The painted papers alone were a chance for experimentation with various paint application methods, including mono printing and creating textures with nontraditional tools. Each base image began with an acrylic painting and then was subsequently developed by cutting and gluing each individual shape on to a cradled panel. I have found that collage can be very forgiving; and,also, that I am able to move a little more abstractly visually, even within the confines of representation.
