Born in the serene midwestern town of Jackson, Michigan, and bred in the urban cauldron of New York City, Ron is founder of three genres of contemporary American art–Notism (hieroglyphic memory fragments), Earth Art (organic canvases) and LetterScapes (abstract word portraits).
Over the past 20 years, Ron has shown in over 100 exhibitions worldwide and won over 200 creative awards, including a coveted Medici medal in Florence, Italy. Burkhardt’s tri-coastal art career has been marked by obsessive designs, vivid colors and linear rhythms. Notism (“Art of the Note”), founded to address the frantic nature of our sprawling, multi-tasking society, explodes with energy, conjuring up gestural semiotics and raw scribbles to uncover the beauty found amid chaos.
His newest genre, “LetterScapes,” evolved out of Notism’s primal scrawls into precise, linear word forms, using bold, geometric color palettes to create hidden meanings that spell names, cities and emotions. The shapes and symbols of his abstract alphabets collide in searing layers of paint and passion, startling in their power to transform language into emotion.
Burkhardt’s Earth Art is rooted in gritty reality and reveals a unique, weather-worn look. Ron flings acrylics and enamel on to wet, unprimed, water-soaked canvas, leaching it through layers of substrates forged from an organic mix of paint, indigenous soil, and intense sun. Bleached outdoors over weeks, nature creates raw textures, shapes, and color forms that pulsate with emotional energy.
Burkhardt has been a frequent presence in international exhibitions, featured in Italy, Japan, Austria, France, Germany, Canada, Switzerland and Brazil. He has shown at Art Basel/Miami, Art Southampton, The Palm Beach Show, Arthamptons, Art Palm Beach, Scope, Sothebys, DTR Modern and Philips dePury.
Ron graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Western Michigan University and later studied at the National Academy of Fine Art in NYC and the Art Students League of New York. He currently works in New York, Palm Beach and Southern California.