Sky Burchard reviewed in THE Magazine

Gallery News January 3, 2010 Katie Herzog on Daily Serving December 20, 2009 Justin Hansch one of top shows of 2009 LA Times! November 27, 2009 Christopher Russell Book Release, Sun. Nov. 29 November 20, 2009 Dawn Kasper performs at Leo Koenig. Nov. 20 November 11, 2009 Steven Bankhead, Location Location Location reviewed in Artillery Magazine November 11, 2009 Margie Schnibbe at the Echo Park Film Center - Nov. 13 October 18, 2009 The Hills are Alive, opens Oct. 24 curated by Laurie Steelink. Featuring Kate Harding, Aaron Noble, Chris Wilder October 17, 2009 Ami Tallman on The Flog October 14, 2009 Jason Yates reviewed in Artreview Magazine October 14, 2009 Ami Tallman on Saatchi On Line

May 6, 2009 Sky Burchard All Year Round Falling in Love Sky Burchard, All Year Round Falling in Love, 2009, installation view. Courtesy artist and Circus Gallery. What happens to unrequited video-game love? Does it disintegrate within the matrix? Or does it defeat the villain and rescue the princess? With Nintendo's Super Mario World at its abstract core, Sky Burchard's exhibition brought up these questions, like a long-gone romance you can't forget, through a self-deprecating nostalgia for 8- and 16-bit video games. In the main gallery, the synergy created by Burchard's sculptures both revealed and repelled the viewer with abstract tales of isolation and unshakeable teenage angst in late adulthood. Burchard's exact-scale replicas of characters and landscapes from Super Mario World are rendered in foam with painstaking precision and are meticulously hand-painted. They suggest the difficulty of obtaining and maintaining human relationships and our perpetual struggle with vulnerability and exposure. Constructed of unnatural materials with hard edges that jut outward or seal off their interiors from sight with a formidable shyness, Burchard's projection of a two-dimensional system into the third dimension gives his sculptures a disconcerting approachability and sympathy, despite their imposing spikes and obsessive precision. In the small gallery, rapidly fabricated but exquisite maquettes were displayed on individual shelves. Unsullied by contact, these maquettes were set atop pristine white blocks of foam and held in quasi-scientific suspense under Plexiglas. Their sole companions were Burchard's original framed drawings, whose anthropomorphic names -- Intensity, Avoidance, Isolation, Solitude -- suggest the deeper emotional implications hidden within the larger sculptures. Between the two rooms, Burchard took the viewer inside and out and back again. Irresistible works that seemed to ward off the viewer simultaneously begged for contact. There is danger in Burchard's beautiful game -- much like the game mechanics of life itself. by Rae Anne Robinett http://themagla.com/cgi-bin/artmagla/review.cgi?ReviewID=242