January 1971
Art Gallery, Eugenia Fuller Atwood Library
1971 BEAVER NEWS
“Color and Subject Contrasts In Burko-Hansen Art Show” by Emily Goldberg
To begin this critique in true Cretan fashion, I began the evening by attending another event and which also proved to be highly unsatisfactory. As I was running around campus I noticed that an art exhibit was in progress and decided to bop in. To my great astonishment and delight, there were many Beaver students and citizens from Philadelphia and suburbia milling around some excellent pictures. The artists behind the excellent event were Diane Burko and Neva Hansen. Miss Burko was born in New York in 1945. She graduated from Skidmore college, Saratoga Springs, New York, with a major in Fine Arts and a Minor in Art History. She then attended the Graduate School of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania where she received an M.F.A. in Painting.
Her work is included in a number of private collections in New York, Philadelphia, California, Florida, and Greece, and has been exhibited in many group shows such as the Cheltenham Annual, Institute of Contemporary Art and the Allentown Art Museum. She lives in Philadelphia and teaches at the Philadelphia Community College.
Miss Burko presented some preliminary sketches and paintings. The subject matter usually consisted of a picture of nature seen through a mechanical device, such as looking at a landscape through an airplane window or looking at an old fashioned picture of women in long dresses while speeding through the scene on a motorcycle. The natural aspects were painted in bright greens and yellows while the material impositions were [painted] in blues and greys. Yet even with the obvious contrast between the two worlds there was no feeling of coldness or evil presented in the mechanical world.
Neva Hansen also showed some paintings and preliminary sketches plus three sculptures. Miss Hansen received her early training at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where she studied from the age of 9 to 18. She completed her undergraduate study at the Rochester Institute of Technology and graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania.
She has exhibited works at various museums in Cleveland, Philadelphia, Seattle, Dayton, Portland, Boston, Topeka and has been included in shows at A. M. Sachs Gallery, New York City, Vanderlip Gallery, Philadelphia; and currently shows with the Marian Locks Gallery in Philadelphia. Her works are included in various private and public collections. Miss Hansen currently teaches at the Philadelphia College of Art, Philadelphia Institute of Art and Drexel University.
Miss Hansen also worked in contrasts, although they were mainly experiments with color rather than subject. A rainbow of colors was imposed on a black background. One picture of this type was flat while the other was contoured to a wall corner. Miss [Hansen] showed the various properties of shapes while working with different amounts of light and dark color. Miss Hansen’s sculptures entitled, “Don’t Tread On Me” and “Zombie” again illustrated the difference of colors and also showed a unique sense of humor.
Anyway, I’m glad I went to see the pictures, they were good and I liked them.
