Liv Burks Blooms as an Artist

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Photo by Sptmbrborn

Liv Burks

Liv Burks

Liv Burks is an artist who began exploring her creative identity in 2020 during quarantine as a means to convey her feelings and emotions. Beginning as drawings on paper, Burks’ work has grown to encompass different mediums including acrylic on canvas and digital art, as well as progressing into sequences such as her “Couch” series and “The Things I Gave Up” series. Three years into her artistic journey, Burks has since been part of several gallery nights and she now has an online print store.

Growing up, Burks never thought of herself as an artist. While her father and brother are artists, Burks found her early creative niche as a writer and speaker. “I loved writing short stories and giving presentations,” she recalls. “I went to college for broadcast communications and wanted to be a news anchor, being in front of a camera talking and telling other peoples’ stories.”

She left college after a few years and would focus on working for a while instead. Even well before her own inception into art however, Burks kept herself surrounded by creative people. “I’ve always had friends who made music and art and were photographers, and all these groups I’d navigate were so inspiring to me,” Burks said.

Intense Solitude

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Photo courtesy Liv Burks

Liv Burks artwork

Amid the intense solitude when the pandemic hit, Burks acquired some art utensils and began seeing what she could do. “It started with printer paper, Sharpie, listening to music and drinking a little wine (laughs),” she said. “It was so relieving…I had no idea that I’d sell my work or that it’d come to this magnitude—it all started as a very personal thing.”

Her early art consisted of abstract shapes and streaks in black and white that Burks perceived as celebrations of herself while also unpacking complex emotions attached to pain and trauma; she explains, “Once I got more comfortable in the routine of doing art I think I brought more emotions to the table. It’s kind of cool how it’s transitioned into such a piece of my life.”

Burks greatly expanded the capacity for narratives and themes in her work once she learned how to construct faces, explaining, “Every person depicted in my art is either a story I’m telling or a love story. I started with a lot of two-person pieces that kind of went into my relationship with men and with love in general. My heart was very open to someone when I was becoming an artist so I used to paint them a lot.”

This also developed into a way that she could portray her Blackness to the world. Burks’ pieces became more colorful, radiant and bold over time as she got comfortable expressing and taking ownership of her identity through art. Her pieces are often genderless and have displayed varying degrees of femininity and masculinity. “It turned into creating spaces in rooms that I feel comfortable in and that the characters in my art feel comfortable in,” she shared. “When it was all black and white before, it was really quiet and had a scary, dreadful feeling, but now I feel like my work is really in bloom where these are the spaces I occupy where I can be raw and vulnerable.”

Digging Deep

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Photo courtesy Liv Burks

Liv Burks artwork

Burks frequently journals as well, which she believes goes hand in hand with her art, saying, “The more I dig deeper into myself, the easier it is for me to paint and portray a message.”

In 2022 Burks embraced digital art as a medium, which she’s gravitated towards for its vastness and fluidity. “You can think quickly and put it down quickly,” she said. “If I have a thought, I can draw it and erase it if I mess up. You can also bring it to life with animations and there’s so much vibrancy and control with it.”

Last September Burks had her first gallery night at Nō Studios, titled “Evolution of Bird,” which consisted entirely of digital art. She describes the exhibition as a self-interpretation of her creative journey, saying, “Birds come up in a lot of my pieces, and “Evolution of Bird” was like my journey of walking to flight, basically. I actually did a piece for that show that I never put up because it just felt so sacred; the idea for the gallery night all started from it.”

More recently, Burks had an exhibition at the end of April with AMFM in Chicago; it was her first time showing her work out of state. This was a profoundly inspirational experience for Burks; she reflects, “I think the experience really solidified that I have the talent, the craftsmanship and the creative ability to be in these spaces. I got a lot of great feedback about framing and mounting my pieces and networking. It really moved me in an emotional way, and I would love to see more shows like that in Milwaukee.”

In terms of her next steps, Burks hopes to make larger scale pieces, including community-centered pieces such as a mural. “When we see our community doing creative expression—when we see other Black people and other women doing it—it’s inspiring to everyone around us. My biggest goal is to have more local impact with my art and to be more hands-on with my community. Something that I never want to get far away from is creating for myself; it brings me back to that memory of just me in my loft painting.”

Visit Liv Burks’ website at livmke.bigcartel.com.