Phillip Burger began his career as a mason's assistant in Southern California. He learned the early lessons of this craft while working with his father on the construction of natural stone fireplaces. His eye for how each successive course of stone should fit in harmony with the sources below was recognized early on. They worked together and provided many clients with structures that honored both form and function. This early exploration in composition and form was halted with his father's untimely death.
Soon after, Philip discovered the desert. Venturing along mountain ridges and arroyos, he was drawn to the stone fragments embedded in the earth and the endless varieties of shape. Often kicking up and scratching pieces of stone, hed’ wonder how, a long time before the fragments must have been separated from a larger whole. The pieces in his hand, by their feel, and by the silhouette they produced when held close to his eye and against the sky, were separate from, but maintained the identity of their source, the surrounding hilltops and ridges. Such passion for discovery and relationship in the natural world continue to inform his sculpture. Phillip uses the traditional mallet and chisel as well as the pneumatic hammer, a tool powered by compressed air, to craft his pieces. Many of this works are left textured and hewn, thro he does prefer to finish them with a thin acrylic coat. Despite the power of stone to evoke within us a sense of permanence, this step is necessary to protect the stone from industry-tainted air and rain.
Phillip’s attraction to stone is defiant of contemporary expectations, documented as they are by the application of technology and remediation. Yet, because of stones long and rich tradition, artists like Phillip serve as ballast against the gnawing influence of entertainment-based media. Whether visiting with Phillip or viewing his work, he will impel you to journey across a mountain and experience the foundation of archetypes, It will be a walk toward a center of meaning–a meaning that provides support to and respite from our rush to digitize.
