Greg Burak, Still Life with Lemons, 2026, Acrylic on linen, 45.7 x 50.8 cm. Photo courtesy of RKFA and artist
Antecedents, a solo exhibition of new paintings by New York-based artist Greg Burak, is on view from 29 August to 26 September 2026 at the gallery’s Gillman Barracks space.
The paintings in Antecedents are built within a set of formal limits that Burak sets for himself, and it is through working within these limits that the paintings take shape as a series of pictorial movements. This approach lets him draw out the relationships between forms, both to one another and to the overall logic of each picture and each grouping of pictures. The motifs he paints are things that are, or could be, close at hand, while the figures who populate the work are built from memory and imagination rather than drawn from life. The interiors are similarly reconstructed: spaces Burak may once have lived in, or invented settings that sit outside the everyday, built to encourage movement through them.
Running through the exhibition is a negotiation between what is constructed and what is observed. Burak’s handling of paint stays direct and naturalistic throughout, allowing invented and referenced elements to sit together within a single picture without friction. Depending on how they are read, the paintings shift between two registers: at times they describe a plausible three-dimensional space, at other times they flatten into a series of interlocking, directional shapes across the picture plane.
Burak moves in and out of one- and two-point perspective across the body of work, generally staying within the conventions of each but occasionally breaking from them to build moments of discord that still hold together as a whole. Some paintings are organised quite simply, while others follow a more disruptive logic shaped by how individual elements overlap or sit apart from one another. This interplay is what generates, and at times fractures, the visual cadence running through the exhibition.
Venue: Richard Koh Fine Art, Blk 47 Malan Road, #01-26 Gillman Barracks Singapore 109444
When: 29 Aug - 26 Sep 2026,
