In Conversation: Artist's & Their Narratives – Part 2

For the second edition of our three-part interview series, we spoke with Xanthe Burdett, an accomplished artist from Devon, now based in London. Xanthe recently completed her MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2024. Her recent exhibitions include The Unwritten Script at Sarah Kravitz, Palimpsestic Impressions at Arusha Gallery and Within and Without at Liliya. Xanthe's work is part of both the Soho and Soho House collections, and she was awarded the prestigious De Laszlo Foundation Young Artist Prize.

Question: How do elements of cultural theory, mythology, or fantasy shape and influence your creative process? Can you share specific examples of how these themes have informed your work or artistic direction?

Answer: I am interested in how woodlands, so rich in stories, can be places that exist outside of time; a ‘thin place’ where the boundaries between worlds are porous. I’m inspired by tales of metamorphosis, where the human and non-human find themselves entangled. For example stories like; Daphne and Apollo (and many related myths, where women are transfigured as trees), Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight or rumours of the black dog that haunts Dartmoor.

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 Anna Mendita’s photographs after I heard the story of her death, the long cool shadows in the woods.

Question: In what ways has your personal background or life experiences influenced the themes and concepts behind your artwork? Could you share how specific aspects of your upbringing or culture have shaped your creative vision?

Answer: Absolutely, my obsession with the woods was felt long before I sought out answers in literature and theory; the bark on my feet as I climbed a tree, the pang of unease as a story came a little too close to the surface. I grew up in a community where storytellers in their 80s would share tales that their grandfathers had told to them.  As a child, it seemed completely plausible to me that I could walk through a portal and be transported to another time.

Question: What artistic techniques or visual elements do you use to enrich and communicate the narratives behind your work?

Answer: I understand my desire to immerse my stories in the woods as a way of drawing out figures from the margins, playing with visual ambiguity and blurred figures as a way to engage with art histories that offer an incredibly rich visual language but a limited perspective on what stories are worth telling. 

By experimenting with transparent and dissolving layers of paint, I’m beginning to understand the woods as a space that can encompass time differently. Time doesn’t stop in the woods, but there is a feeling that stories can layer, timelines can overlap. Through this understanding I am building my practice like a poem, where a personal symbolism of figures, myths, allegories and portents shift and layer as I come to understand them, often filtered through the colour green, which has as many meanings as it has tones on my palette.

Question: Are there any upcoming projects or works in progress that you're excited about and would like to share?

Answer: I’ve got some exciting projects coming up. I’m currently on the West Residency in Notting Hill until the end of November working on some large-scale paintings. I have a work in the upcoming show Omnipotence of a Dream at Salford Museum, celebrating the centenary of the Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto. My work is in response to an Eileen Agar piece that will be included in the show. I also have an online show of works on paper with Wilder Gallery.

You can continue to follow Xanthe's artistic jounrey on her website here.