Aaron Burleson explores the nature of reality at Chaos Contemporary Craft

One of the smallest paintings in Aaron Burleson’s new exhibition at Chaos Contemporary Craft depicts a faceless figure being carried away in the talon of a massive bald eagle. 

While most of the work on display in “Touchdown Jesus,” which kicks off with an opening reception from 5-8 p.m. on Friday, April 17, started as pencil sketches, the image of the eagle, titled “Ganymede,” is one that Burleson transposed directly from his mind to the canvas, struck by the intensity with which it entered and lingered in his consciousness. “Maybe it’s the political climate, where there’s all of this talk of abductions,” said the artist, who made reference to everything from the operation in which US forces whisked away Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to the ongoing actions of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. 

This idea is amplified by an adjacent work that shows a quartet of police officers from the perspective of someone being questioned or detained, its proximity enabling a broader conversation centered on “institutional control,” as Burleson described it. “Collectively, it feels like we’re at the whim of these greater forces, and I think figuration is a good way to work through those feelings,” he said.

Elsewhere, the exhibition confronts the notion of truth and the way internet culture has created a series of independent realities shaped by the decline of traditional media, conspiracy, and echo chambers made more sharply defined by social media algorithms. “That’s definitely part of the greater theme of the show: These opposing realities … and what even is the truth?” said Margaret Wunderlich, the founder of Chaos Contemporary Craft, which will mark its one-year anniversary with the opening of Burleson’s exhibition. 

Burleson traced the roots of this exploration back to a show he put together in his senior year of college that centered on conspiracy theories, which he said involved enmeshing himself in various fringe online communities. “I think the best way to describe it is that everybody has their own web of knowledge, and it may overlap with other people, and it may not. But through these algorithms everyone has their own reasoning and rationale for what they think is going on,” the artist said. “And I guess I wanted to kind of take it literally and create my own web of knowledge.”

Two of the older works on display – portraits of Lana Del Rey and Ghislaine Maxwell, respectively – have since taken on different contexts, with the image of a laughing Maxwell now reading as even more sinister in light of the details that have emerged detailing her role in abetting Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes. “It’s like the joke is even more on us,” said Burleson, who expressed a growing belief that the powerful figures that existed within the Epstein/Maxwell orbit could avoid accountability.

Other paintings on display draw upon religious iconography and mythology. “Hercules and the Lion” takes its inspiration from the tale of Hercules wrestling the Nemean Lion – an invulnerable creature with golden fur – but strips it of its grandiosity, the artist crafting a comparatively raw image of a man grappling with a lion. “Antichrist,” in contrast, leans into its source material, Burleson painting the towering “Beast from the Sea” described in the Book of Revelations. The artist’s interests in these biblical scenes are rooted partly in his having grown up Catholic, with Burleson recalling “how productive the boredom” could be in the hours he idled in the church pew as a child.

“You just sit, stand up, do the sign of the cross, and then [there’s time] where your mind can just settle on different things,” he said. “And my take on religion now is a whole different discussion, but I think it has informed how I engage with the world with different levels of humor or seriousness. It’s just always been a constant and there’s no way to maneuver around it.”

While the paintings in the exhibit explore an array of concepts, they’re united in Burleson’s technique – Wunderlich said she’s been told that his works are reminiscent of 1960s paint by number images – as well as his color palette, rich in dulcet yellows and avocado greens. There also exists within each canvas deep layers of storytelling that in some cases can extend beyond what is actually shown. Witness “The Notdeer,” which depicts a creature from Appalachian urban legend hiding in thick brush, its form partially illuminated by the light from some unseen source that exists somewhere offscreen.

“And that brings a little mystique, a little unknowability to the image,” said Burleson, who added the light source to the painting two years after he thought it finished, believing the original composition to be too dark and lacking a clear focal point. 

This mystique carries throughout “Touchdown Jesus,” in which familiar scenes are warped, skewed and otherwise recontextualized, while unfamiliar settings are presented in a way that can make them feel horrifically commonplace.

Such, the artist might say, is the nature of our reality in these times.