The Cynthia Corbett Gallery is proud to announce the upcoming show, ar•chi•tec•ton•ic, which features the works of Painter Andy Burgess & Photographer Tom Leighton. Their use of architectural lines and vibrant colors create a wonderful dialogue between these two artists.

Painter Andy Burgess’s fascination with buildings continues with this new series of large-scale painting that colourfully re-imagines some of the iconic masterpieces of early Twentieth Century modern architecture. Focusing on Bauhaus, De Stijl and other movements associated with the “International Style”. Burgess has been selecting subjects for his paintings with the discernment of the portrait painter. Buildings are chosen for their clean lines, bold geometric design and dynamic forms. Burgess approaches his subjects with a fresh eye, simplifying forms even further and inventing, somewhat irreverently, new colour schemes that expand the modernist lexicon beyond the minimalist white palette and the rigid use of primary colours. Burgess admits to being influenced by great pop artists such as Andy Warhol and Peter Blake, reveling in their sense of colour and celebration of imagery from the world of advertising and popular culture and also powerful emotions of memory and nostalgia.

For the forthcoming exhibition at Site 109 Burgess is completing a suite of gouache studies, which span his subject matter over the last ten years. There will be studies of the Brooklyn Bridge, a favorite subject and one frequently returned to, rendered in a patchwork of color. There will also be a series of studies of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum, whose sinuous curves remain alluring and wondrous to this day. Finally, some surprises relating specifically to early modernist architecture in New York, such as the William Lescaze House in Midtown Manhattan, a striking white concrete and glass brick dwelling nestled in amongst the brownstones, that dates back to 1934 and is possibly the first modernist residence in New York! Among the canvases will be two new richly colored and painterly oils of Palm Springs mid-century architecture and a signature painting of the famous Stahl House in the Los Angeles hills; a mid-century masterpiece. It’s cool minimalism, clean lines, glass and steel structure is rendered in abstract terms like a Mondrian painting.

Andy Burgess, Collections include: Mandarin Oriental Hotel, San Francisco, Cardinal Lysander, London, Artist in Residence for Crossrail PLC, London, Cunard Lines, Queen Mary II, The Netherlands, APL Shipping Ltd., San Francisco, Chelsfield PLC., London, The Tisch Collection, Joseph & Nancy Chetrit, Beth deWoody, Emma Thompson, Kazuo Ishiguro, Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Born and raised in London, Burgess moved to Tucson, Arizona in 2009 and is represented by The Cynthia Corbett Gallery (London).

Photographer Tom Leighton's works are a celebration of architecture. Crammed with colour, form and energy, they highlight different aspects of the built environment. As in any city, in Leighton's works opulent forms meet functional features. Each element of each cityscape has even value, as Leighton showcases nationally significant icons next to everyday town planning, such as the ubiquitous pedestrian crossing. Structures and colours are carefully crafted to give the impression of populated places. Each work is at once architectonic, yet has a hint of an anti architectonic element: the structure and beauty of buildings is there for all to see, but so is the apparent chaos and unpredictability of the people within. They have their quirks - many are using umbrellas under cover. Leighton's works ask playful questions, and show us the beauty and variety of our designed world.

For the forthcoming exhibition at Site 109 Leighton will present a new series of crafted photographs which reveal the poetic beauty that can result from painstaking digital manipulation. Leighton has travelled through Europe, Asia and North America, building up an impressive body of photographic images that he then combines to make fantastical landscapes. Leighton is from a new group of photographers who specialize in digital & manual photo manipulation, his work celebrates our landscapes and the buildings within which reflect our past, present and futures. The Photography of Tom Leighton has been compared to the work of German photographer Andreas Gursky.

Collections include: AT&T Corporate Collection, USA; Prudential Douglas Elliman, NYC, William Blair, Chicago / London; The Sandor Family Collection, Chicago; The Shein Family Collection of Pennsylvania; The V&A Museum, London; The UBS Art Collection, London; JCA Group, London; MuCEM (French National Museum of European and Mediterranean civilizations) Marseille; Nicholas Topiol, President of Christian Lacroix, Paris.

Tom Leighton lives and works in London and is represented by The Cynthia Corbett Gallery (London).