Biography

Burton Kramer was educated at Yale University (MFA), The Institute of Design of Illinois Institute of Technology (BSc), The Royal College of Art, London as a Fulbright Scholar, and New York State University.

He is an Academician of The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA), a Fellow of The Graphic Designers of Canada, a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI). He is listed in ‘Canadian Who’s Who’‘Who’s Who in America’, ‘Who’s Who in The World’ and “Who’s Who in Graphic Art’.

In 1999, he was the recipient of a ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ from ArtsToronto. In 2002 Kramer received ‘The Order of Ontario’ for his contributions to the cultural life of the Province. In 2003, he received an Honorary Doctorate (DDes) from The Ontario College of Art and Design.

Kramer has exhibited his painting in solo exhibitions at Gallery Moos, Toronto, Rochester Institute of Technology, Gallery 1313, Toronto, Kabat Wrobel Gallery, Toronto, Peak Gallery, Toronto, Pekao Gallery, Toronto, Italinteriors and IE, Toronto.

He has participated in gallery and group shows in Bogota, Mexico City, Vienna, Philadelphia, Toronto, and at Oeno Gallery in Prince Edward County.

Kramer has lectured, published, taught and exhibited his work internationally, traveled (and photographed) extensively... in much of Europe, the Far and Middle East, Central and North America.


Artist Statement

My paintings are music made visual; they deal with rhythms, syncopations, tonalities and moods. Their primary messages are sensory, and not literal.

The paintings do not 'abstract' the experience of reality, as we know it. They provide the viewer with an alternate form of reality, just as music often does.

Instrumentally produced, multi-layered sound offers the listener sensory pleasure. In my paintings, color and forms, integrated in a structure based composition, provide a similar pleasure.

My paintings reference dancing feet, jazz, bebop, swing, baroque and folk music, Mozart and multi-layered, complex Haitian drumming.

Composition, which is geometry based, provides a structure for the use of color; the color adds the actual sounds.

To fully experience music, one needs a receptive ear. To fully experience these paintings the viewer needs to taste the color, hear and feel the rhythms, the mood, the music.

- Burton Kramer / 2010