Sean Burton
Army, Artist
British Punk emerged in the UK in the 70s, when Sean was just a teenager. Drawn to the ‘do it yourself’ ethos of Punk, Sean revelled in being able to break away from elitism and create an artistic style and identity with whatever might have been available.
“I had no formal art training. It wasn’t an option then. I just found it a great way to communicate,” he recalls.
A former British soldier, Sean emigrated to Australia and served in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) between 1989 and 2006 with deployments to East Timor, the Solomon Islands and the Middle East.
His Australian service began with the Royal Australian Regiment, where he became a Section Commander. Soon after, he was excited to accept a transfer to the Australian Army Public Relations Service as a military reporter, putting his field photography skills, honed during past deployments, to good use.
Following transition from the ADF, Sean’s desire to follow his ‘grassroots’ art crystalised, when he found himself struggling with deteriorating mental health as a result of his military service.
Art offered a purpose and connection post-service, as well as many personal lessons in resilience. He began using photographs of those he’d served with, as a base for his street art.
“Street art was my way of making my artwork widely accessible. It’s my way of telling the stories of everyday people who stepped up to serve their country. Their stories are priceless, and they add to Australia’s cultural identity,” he says.
As an artist, Sean has a foot in both street art and the world of established art. His primary canvas has, to date, been the walls of Melbourne’s laneways. He has also been exhibited in galleries nationally, including the Art Gallery of Western Australia’s Lester Prize for Portraiture and the National Portrait Gallery’s Darling Portrait Prize. Sean has been a featured artist in several exhibitions staged by the Australian National Veterans Arts Museum (ANVAM) including From War at Parliament House, Canberra, in 2018. In 2021 his work was showcased in an exhibition, Between Two Worlds, at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance.
Sean loves telling stories through his art, particularly those stories of other people.
“I really enjoyed painting veteran artist Saif Shamkhi recently. Our stories cross over. We were both born overseas, came here as new Australians and are now veteran artists,” he says.
“We’ve experienced very different journeys when it came to getting to Australia and we have reflected on those initial challenges we faced, particularly of fitting into a new culture.
“Our cultural backgrounds may be very different, but our mutual connection through art and military service opened up an opportunity to discuss what it means to be a new Australian.
“The story behind my artworks is not always necessarily about me, but there’s always a little bit of my personal journey in the mix.”
Primarily using contemporary mediums of stencils and aerosol paint, Sean’s work often depicts people he’s served with or stories of service men and women from the past. The facial expressions, colours, words and clever juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated components convey Sean’s wry sense of humour as well as his deep understanding of his subject matter. He includes clues to make a viewer ask, ‘Why are they wearing that?’ or ‘Why are there paintbrushes in the painting?’. These are all visual clues identifying the subject’s lived experiences.
“Street art is ephemeral. It’ll be here and gone in no time, and you really can’t get too precious about it if you put it out there. Even so, some pieces stand the test of time,” he says.
“I once remixed a particular army image, Babs, into a street art piece. I was lucky, as it stayed up for a year in a Melbourne laneway! So long, in fact, that the old street art underneath started pushing through, adding face wrinkles, and I really liked the natural ageing process.
“The piece took on a new life and, after a year of being exposed to the elements, I wanted to save it from the impending paintover. So, we started peeling and carefully lifting it off the wall, to relocate it back to our studio for preservation.
“But a crowd gathered and started heckling us, thinking we were stealing their street art. ‘Leave the artwork! It’s for everyone,’ they called. It was a bizarre scene. But we avoided the potential riot with our explanation, and we carefully carried the large artwork away in one piece.”
Sean says that he’s proud to see his friendships illustrated via the subjects of his paintings.
“I find it easier to communicate through my art than I do to actually talk to people.”
*Sean and Saif exhibited in ANVAM’s 2018 annual March to Art exhibition, and in the 2018 From War exhibition at Parliament House, Canberra.
