In her first exhibition with Krakow Witkin Gallery, Victoria Burge explores and extends the historical relationship between the Modernist grid and handwritten notation. Using found imagery in 19th and early 20th century diagrams and charts sourced from research libraries, Burge makes works that both transform and honor pre-existing visual codes and their makers.

For works on paper such as Serope or her Untitled slate objects, Burge begins with a coded textile pattern and lets the diagram serve as foundational inspiration, rather than as rule. She reimagines the weaving notations using typewriter keys or hand-drawn markings, transforming the patterns in such a way that would nullify them in their former context, rendering them indecipherable to a weaver (a line extended just a hair too far, a mismatched pair of symbols, or a point left idling in space). Within the mark making, imperfections such as an off-center circle or a not-quite-straight line hint at the human labor inherent in even the most formal of constructions.

The current exhibition also features Burge’s first-ever exhibited painting on canvas, Upsilon. Burge drew and painted the imagery of fabric on unprimed canvas and then proceeded to stretch it, so as to distort both the painted image and the woven material itself. Upsilon is a culmination of Burge’s ongoing study of process, repetition, and negative space, with new investigations in materiality.

Other works in the exhibition expand upon these themes of unseen labor, visual language, and historical archives. Frequently working on found antique papers and employing vintage typewriters, Burge celebrates the endurance and intimacy of these instruments and materials. Her work is an homage to the slow pace and unpredictable rhythm of the analog machine and the handmade object, unveiling meaning in the intrinsic imperfections of each.

Victoria Burge (b. 1976, New York) is a 2024 Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellow, a 2024 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, a recipient of a studio apprenticeship at The Fabric Workshop and Museum (2017), a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant (2018), and fellowships awarded by MacDowell (2018), the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation (2019), and Yaddo (2024), among others. In 2022, she was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome and her works are in the collections of over 20 public institutions. Burge currently lives and works in New Hampshire.

Dates: January 11, 2025 - February 15, 2025

Reception with the artist, Saturday, January 11, 3-5pm

Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 5:30pm

Location: Krakow Witkin Gallery, 10 Newbury Street, Boston, MA 02116

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