ABOUT
BIO
Mira Burack is an artist, mother and educator living gently in an earthship on the unceded land of Pueblo peoples in the high desert mountains of New Mexico. She is engaged by the materials and beings in her daily life – plants, textiles, animals and family – and the interior and exterior spaces around her where meaningful life experiences take place - the bed, land, table and home.
Burack was born in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up on the coast of Maine. She received an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and BA in Studio Art and Psychology from Pepperdine University. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., CUE Art Foundation in New York City, Bridge Projects in Los Angeles, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, New Mexico Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, Media Knox Gallery in Slovenia, Art Gallery of Windsor in Canada, Kunstverin Wolfsburg in Germany, form & concept gallery in Santa Fe and 516 ARTS in Albuquerque, among others. She received a Community + Public Arts Detroit grant for the Edible Hut, and has been nominated for a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors grant and the Anonymous Was a Woman Award. She recently received SITE Santa Fe's SPREAD 7.0 micro-grant, Hazon's Shmita Prize and the Fulcrum Fund for her Sleeping Huts long-term project.
STATEMENT
How does daily life, living close to the elements, teach intimacy, engage the senses, provide comfort, heal, invite rest, and elicit pleasure?
Through photography, textiles, installation, and communal experiences, I share the physical, psychological, and poetic qualities of matter and space. Projects often incorporate hundreds of collaged photographs, painted surfaces, soft and found objects, and communal gatherings that conjure a felt, lived experience. My work straddles 2D and 3D, a space between woven textiles, the illusionary qualities of painting, a soft sculptural sensibility, and the values of land art.
Many of my projects explore the site of the bed and the legacy of sleep. The liminal resting body acts as a portal into an intermediary, horizontal state; this is a fluid place, characterized by the innate sensual movement of cloth. The bed is a rich, contemplative site to consider materials, relationships, and the experience of rest in a swiftly-paced 21st century.
I am honored to be part of a generation of artists exploring self-care, domestic life, and our environment. During this technology-saturated era, and a vulnerable environmental climate, I hope that my work creates memorable ways to re-attune to empathetic, intuitive, and sensual ways of being that embody connection to each other and our surroundings.