THE WINGED MOON
XANTHE BURDETT
The Green Chapel & The Fates
Artist Statement
My work is concerned with the body in nature and the question of the body as nature. Through a personal mythology deeply rooted in place, I am entangling bodies and stories into layered works where the line between the human and non-human wavers and stretches. The works, moving between extreme scales, push and pull as strange creatures rise to the surface through the layers of glazing. I think of my practice as a mesh, my paintings existing within a web extending outwards. One thread to the monumental hunting tapestries in the V&A, another to the way light dances across the fallen tree on the riverbank I grew up on. Paintings from museums, the way I felt when I first saw Ana Mendieta’s photographs after I heard the story of her death, the long cool shadows in the woods.
Xanthe Burdett (b. 1995) is an artist from Devon living and working in London. Her practice is led by painting but also encompasses drawing and installation. She graduated from MA Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2024, and received her BA in Education, English and Drama at Cambridge University. Burdett’s work explores the body in nature – and the body as nature – through a personal mythology rooted in place. She sees her practice as a mesh: threads connecting hunting tapestries in the V&A, Mendieta’s ghostly photographs, and the way light once moved across a fallen tree by her childhood riverbank.