A rare opportunity to view two monumental paintings for a final time before they move into private collections.

Robert Xavier Burden’s 2023 solo exhibition Relics featured a monumental work-in-progress, The Alien Painting, which Burden painted live in the gallery throughout the exhibition. That painting has now been completed and will be unveiled in a pop-up display at OMA along with The Lagomorph Painting Featuring nearly 100 different rabbits, Hares and pikas, an epic painting finished since the end of the museum exhibition. 

Burden says about his artistic practice, “In 2006 I began a series of large-scale oil paintings depicting the small action figures that I played with as a boy. Initially these figures were set against fabric, wallpaper, and rug patterns from my childhood home. Over the years the decorative motifs have become more complex and derived from historical references, often incorporating toys from various generations, but the motivation behind the work remains the same. I am inspired by the amorphous line that is drawn between imagination and reality, childhood wonder and adult practicality, and the ineffability of what can turn a piece of plastic into an almost talismanic object. There is an obvious irony in spending thousands of hours to create a single painting that glorifies a cheap, mass-produced toy. And while that irony could reflect issues of commodity fetishism, consumer addiction, Peter Pan Syndrome or even shallow idolatry, I want these paintings to represent something positive in my life. Although it was sheltered and naive, there was a freedom in my childhood. It was free from the politics of race and sex and religion. It was free from the weight of history, and the worry of the future. It was free from rhetoric and paranoia, shame and regret, cynicism and despair. There is nothing profound about commenting on the minor tragedy of losing one's innocence, or the struggle to maintain one's idealism. I just want to renew my faded sense of awe.”