Always neat and tidy, wearing a shirt and tie and carrying a briefcase, Jeff Burke is more likely to be taken for an accountant than for an artist. If you look within the briefcase you’ll find stacks of artwork and inspirational source materials culled from newspapers and magazines. Look within Burke and you’ll find the heart of a man driven to create.
Burke’s compositions are often tidy as well. When drawing such things as footwear, shoe stores’ shopping bags and cats, he will often draw them over and over in rows. Though the resulting rows and columns line up nicely, it never seems to be his intention to create a sterile grid. The final composition always retains an organic feel, with elements being combined on the page in a balanced way.
The subject matter of Burke’s artwork is more or less confined to a few areas of his interest, women, politics, religion, cats and footwear. Balancing personalized text with linear images, Burke creates full and interesting stories about life issues. His colorful images tend to elevate his subject matter to iconic status, lending an unexpected importance to what would otherwise be mundane.