Jeffrey Thomas Burke was born in 1957. He received a BA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1981 and an (hon)MS from Brooks Institute of Photography in 1999. Burke worked for many years as a commercial photographer, cinematographer and graphic designer. He was an early adopter of digital photography and imaging as a part of his studio practice. In 2006 Jeffrey and his wife, artist Lorraine Triolo, retired from commercial practice and re-opened BurkeTriolo Studio to create personal work.
Jeff’s current body of work speaks to the concept of Paradise as a beautiful myth and Man’s need for purpose and a lasting place in the cosmos. His unique image style combines original photography with digital manipulation to create scenes of exuberant life and utopian bliss.
J.T. Burke lives and works in South Pasadena, California.
“3 Minute Studio Visit” - a short description of my studio practice.
Recent Instagram
About My Technique
I am a digital collagist and a screen tinkerer. I find and revive old parts and pieces to make them beautiful again. This series of images began in 2009 and continues with the same general process and point of view. My original elements are old used costume jewelry and brass figurines that I find at local swap meets or are gifted from friends. I bring them into the studio and photograph each one on a white background. They are each added into a digital catalog, sorted by types and keywords, masked and made ready for future use.
To create a new image, these photo elements are combined together and manipulated to create compositions, textures and focus points. I generally work from a vague idea and play with it. The work is very intuitive – I don’t work from layouts. After a couple decades of doing this I’ve fortunately developed good digital dexterity, so it’s more like playing to me.
Inevitably, a composition emerges that is textural, rich in detail and compositionally iconic. Some are more organic, some more symmetrical. There are figures and faces and landscapes and symbols, all in abstract forms using my methods. There are a lot of recurring characters in my compositions, especially Little Bee.
About My Work
My images reflect interests in unique items from the physical world and notions that are dear to Man’s soul. I use collected objects to create fantastic compositions that represent intangible human desires, myths and philosophies. My work contains color, light and figure that are all generated by the energy of thousands of small images. The result is ornate and tells tales of life forces unbounded by reality.
I explore the human obsession with Paradise. In my own mind, my images speak to concepts of beauty, afterlife and man’s role in the universe. Costume jewelry and brass figurines are the building blocks of my works; they are a tangible representation of Man-made beauty, just as Paradise is its ultimate portrayal.
I See Paradise.
Paradise is a myth. It’s a concoction of our own devices created to comfort us from the rigors of daily life and the sorrows of the human condition. Paradise gives us hope for something meaningful beyond this mortal life. It’s a beautiful myth, so beautiful that even knowing it’s a myth only slightly diminishes its value. I paint pictures of the myth with my art. Using vintage costume jewelry as building blocks, I create visions of a joyous utopia. I search swap meets and yard sales for discarded pins, broaches, figurines and trophies. I photograph them and use the images to create compositions of surreal wonder.