PETRA BURSEE
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ARTIST BIO
Petra Bursee is a German oil painter based in Potsdam and Berlin. Born and brought up in the GDR she traveled a lot once she could. Her individual travels soon shifted their focus from adventure to learn about people´s life in different parts of the world.
In her academic career – she holds degrees in social work and social science –, with her volunteer work and during 25 years of professional work for intercultural exchange and development education – mainly in cooperation with indigenous communities and people in India – she dealed with issues around identity and belonging, cultural heritage and change, living conditions and justice, global problems and possible curses of action.
Those studies and experiences are her endless source of inspiration and shine through her art. Her paintings tell stories of life in a global context and offer the viewer to explore individual emotions and society structures of others as well of oneself.
Petra Bursee has found her voice as an artist. As an autodidact artist her artistic journey as an adult first began with street photography, went on later to exploring design and digital art to finally find a home in creating oil paintings of meaningful stories.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I create figurative oil paintings which want to tell stories of life and enhance thoughts about our existence as human beings in this world: how we deal with the joys and burdens of everyday life, treat each other and nature, about our seeking for identity and belonging, justice and hope and our wish for a positive future. I believe as humans beings we share much more than what devides us.
In my paintings I explore and communicate living conditions and situations I came across, wish to support interest, empathy and self reflection of the viewer. In connection to my biography my artistic focus might be seen as a continuation of my educational work and the same values and intentions might drive it. But I don´t intend to teach anyone. My art expresses my own questions, worries and hopes - and I try to create paintings which take viewers along with me.
Most of my paintings are inspired by my own photograps. Sometimes a photo inspires a painting, sometimes I look for reference material to conduct a painting idea. I also do photo collages to establish the composition. The final painting is always different from the photo no matter how great the similarity is: The painting is never limited to the situation documented by the photo, but a bunch of universal questions and emotions.
I work almost entirely in oil. I might use a bit of acrylic paint, oil pastels or mixed media, but my main medium is oil paint. I am an autodidact painter and seek to develop my skills through extensive art appreciation and workshop participation. To paint and practice more I recently decided for a job change to gain more time and focus for my art.
