by Christy Rodriguez de Conte

Multi-media artist Elton Burgest lent his artistic eye as a juror for this year’s Creative Tallahassee exhibition, which runs through June 5 at City Hall Art Gallery.

Since April, this year’s Creative Tallahassee exhibition has filled the walls of the City Hall Art Gallery. As part of the Art in Public Places program, sponsored by the City of Tallahassee and presented by the Council on Culture & Arts, this curated exhibit features a vast array of 2-D and 3-D media by artists in the community. Highly educated visual artists from the Capital City region carefully reviewed and judged each submission.

The guest juror is selected because of their active and persistent dedication to local arts and unique knowledge of various artistic mediums. Still, art can be subjective, and judging it can be intimidating for everyone involved. Luckily for the artists who submitted, this year’s Creative Tallahassee juror Elton Burgest recognized and respected that creating art is a highly personal journey artists take when creating art.

He felt honored to be involved this year as an exhibition juror. “I can tell you there is art of different mediums, different messages, from the Tallahassee area showcasing their talents. Which in and of itself is a beautiful exchange,” said Burgest. “It is ridiculous how talented people are in this area. I think it’s important to see what people have come up with.”

Over 30 artists and as many as 75 pieces of art were selected, highlighting an array of artistic mediums such as photography, painting, mixed media, drawing, and digital artwork.

Like Burgest, an ideal guest juror is passionate about pushing contemporary art and arts initiatives within their community. Art has always been a form of expression for Burgest, which fulfills him at a deep level. To him, power resides in purpose, and art is his purpose.

Burgest says, “Now we are going to talk about Jesus.” He chuckles and shares a time as a young child when he built a cross made out of Legos. He told his mom God had put it in his hands. Since then, he has searched for purpose in his life only to circle back to his faith, community, and the art that had been there from the beginning.

“We try to find our purpose. We search for it,” reveals Burgest. “I find my purpose in the simplest thing I’ve always been doing, [like] making art.” As a juror, Burgest leans into this idea when viewing other artists’ work, considering the use of color and the difficulty of executing the piece. Burgest seeks to understand what the artist is conveying and what the purpose of the work is.

Born and raised in Marathon, Burgest eventually moved to Tallahassee at 5 for his mother to attend Florida A&M University. Even at that young age, he found himself sketching and drawing as a means to entertain and express himself.

“There was a point when my family couldn’t afford any action figures. So I drew them and cut them out to play with them,“ says Burgest. His artistic skills were honed at Godby High School’s Academy of Information Technology, where he studied digital design.

Ultimately Burgest followed his creative passion to Florida State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts. It was there he discovered the power of digital media to convey information clearly and creatively. Currently, Burgest serves as a Multimedia Design Specialist at FSU.

Although digital design allows for financial stability, Burgest continues expanding upon his multi-media artwork to create a dialogue between the viewer and the work. Inspired by the incredible technique of Kehinde Wiley, the Black artist who painted the Obama portrait, and Michelangelo Caravaggio, a Baroque painter of the late 16th and early 17th century, he can take visceral content and envelope it with clean and purposeful lines.

At this year’s Creative Tallahassee exhibition, he instead took on the role of viewer from the juror’s seat. As a storyteller, Burgest invites the viewer to consider, question, and discuss the messages conveyed through his work.

During the pandemic, Burgest began to question his purpose and artistic desires. As an artist of color, he often felt encouraged to speak about oppression and suffering. This, compiled with the aftermath caused by the murder of George Floyd in 2020, was making Burgest angry.

“I was feeling so miserable that all I did was be angry. It wasn’t till I realized that I needed to work on myself (that things changed). If you just stay mad, you are only going to be more angry. I had to go back to church and just really focus. And in that, I felt like my purpose, my art, shifted.” This change in his work led him to find happiness where he is and create art that lives in truth with a positive impact.

As a juror for Creative Tallahassee, Burgest propelled the positivity he discovered with artists in the show. Like Burgest, many artists felt a shift after the pandemic. They were challenged to investigate their artistic voice and contributions, as seen by the overwhelming passion and purpose shown in the submitted works. Burgest had the privilege as the guest juror to honor a selected few of those enthusiastic and purposed works through an award ceremony.

On May 4, he joined many artists in the exhibition and city officials to celebrate this year’s winners. Elizabeth George’s Win by a Nose won the Mayor’s Purchase Prize. The first place prize went to Janice “Ecinja” McCaskill’s “Portrait of Charlotte in the Garden.” Meredith Maloney’s “Woodpecker Canopy” came in second, and Kathy Pilkenton’s “Vanuatu Tour Guides” snagged the third-place award. Honorable mentions included Rabon Ragan’s “Carrabelle Colors,” Cosby Hayes’ “Fluorescent Tide,” and Donovan Johnson’s “Grown.”

The Creative Tallahassee exhibit gathers artists at all points in their careers from many artistic avenues to elevate Tallahassee art and its creators. Although the exhibition closes on June 5, there is still time to see this eclectic exhibit of award-winning work in person and through COCA’s online gallery.

Read the article on the Tallahassee Democrat.