Growing up and working in Los Angeles as well as being on the back lots of movie studios informed Caren Wynne-Burke’s perception that architecture gives meaning to a larger story. Her paintings transform real life environments into stagecraft, telling the story of domestic and secret spaces. After earning a BA in drawing & painting and an MA in Illustration from Cal State, Fullerton took a long, circuitous route away from painting. In 2019 she picked up where she left off and returned to painting full time.
The atmosphere gives up the most surreal interplay in San Francisco. Wynne-Burke hopes to find a singular approach to depicting its architecture, void of ubiquitous hills and the cars parked on them. Rather focusing on the effects of sun, shadows, and light from within. Beginning each work with detailed colored pencil drawings, transitioning to the final panel with a grisaille painting, ending with color glazes. Everything is planned, any spontaneity comes from the moment she finds the subject in real time and photographs it.