Lowry Burgess (1940 – January 28, 2020) was a conceptual and environmental
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
and educator and was a professor at
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
, where he was a Distinguished Fellow in the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry.
He also served on the Advisory Council of
METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence).
Lowry was educated at the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He continued his studies at the
University of Pennsylvania and at the
Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
Achievements
After the destruction of the Buddhas in
Bamiyan
Bamyan or Bamyan Valley (); ( prs, بامیان) also spelled Bamiyan or Bamian is the capital of Bamyan Province in central Afghanistan. Its population of approximately 70,000 people makes it the largest city in Hazarajat. Bamyan is at an alti ...
,
Afghanistan, in 2001, he authored the "Toronto Manifesto, The Right to Human Memory." His 1989 piece entitled “Boundless Cubic Lunar Aperture” became the seventh piece of art taken into space by
NASA (after the 6 pieces of art in the
Moon Museum of 1969). “Vision Flower Portals” are all based upon a flower, but not the same one, for each flower and painting is its own addition to "Quiet Axis." The Quiet Axis is a visionary realignment of the earth and heavens so that new relationships may be ordered to establish a new framework for consciousness. Each aspect of the Quiet Axis searches for the soul of the world wherein it is neither object nor belief — where darkness and light are one eternal presence.
He received awards from the
American Academy of Arts and Letters, the
National Institute of Arts and Letters, the
Guggenheim Foundation, the
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...
, the
National Endowment for the Arts, the
Massachusetts Artists Foundation, the
Kellogg Foundation
The W. K. Kellogg Foundation was founded in June 1930 as the W. K. Kellogg Child Welfare Foundation by breakfast cereal pioneer Will Keith Kellogg. In 1934, Kellogg donated more than $66 million in Kellogg Company stock and other investments t ...
and the
Berkmann Fund.
His artwork can be found in museums and archives in many countries; especially those that focus on art and science.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burgess, Lowry
Carnegie Mellon University faculty
Environmental artists
1940 births
2020 deaths
University of Pennsylvania alumni
Instituto Allende alumni
American expatriates in Mexico