Baker Artist Portfolios

Ainsley Burrows (b. 1974 in Kingston, Jamaica; based in Baltimore, MD) is a full-time multidisciplinary artist who explores untold stories and unspoken emotions. Raised in Brooklyn, NY, Burrows' creative pursuits as a poet, musician, performer, and painter deeply influence one another.

Burrows' professional artistic journey began after a life-altering car accident in his early 20s, which led him to abandon an MBA program and fully commit to his passion for art. He toured the world as a poet and performer until 2009 when he expanded his artistic expression to include painting.

From 2009 to 2020, Burrows created hundreds of paintings, transforming his literary talent into a visual language, primarily using viscous latex and acrylic paint on canvas. During the 2020 pandemic, he was forced to take a break from performing, but was ready to enter the art world, having spent the previous four years (2016-2019) creating a series of 125 paintings titled "The Maroons: Rebellion." Select works from this series were featured in his first solo exhibition at the State University of New York (SUNY) Oneonta in 2022.

Emerging as a prolific abstract artist, Burrows has developed four unique methodologies: NeoChaos, Raktism, String Theory, and Thirdism. Preferring to paint on large canvases, Burrows uses NeoChaos to create expressive gestures, lines, and vibrant swathes of color, adding a distinct voice to the abstract expressionist canon. Raktism delves into the fourth dimension, featuring boundaries, abstractions, echoes, and experiments with time and space on a 2D canvas. Inspired by the scientific framework, String Theory involves sweeping, curving motions with paint, often requiring full-body movement. Each methodology evolves from and contains the previous, culminating in Thirdism—a synthesis of his visual language where the subtractive process reveals luminous figures and emotional topographies emerging from within the chaos.

In 2024 Burrows was awarded the JJC Residency, a collaborative program between the Joshua Johnson Council (JJC), Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), and Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).

In addition to SUNY Oneonta, Burrows has showcased his work in solo exhibitions at Rush Arts in Philadelphia, PA; Creative Alliance in Baltimore, MD; The DC Arts Center in Washington, DC; Baltimore’s Gallery In The Sky (World Trade Center) and Quid Nunc Art Gallery, in Baltimore, MD. He has also participated in group exhibitions at 11:Eleven Gallery in Washington, DC; Arlington Arts Center in Arlington, VA; Amos Eno Gallery in Brooklyn, NY; LaiSun Keane Gallery in Boston, MA; and O Santuario Galleria in Lisbon, Portugal. Burrows' work is held in numerous private collections, including those of Hill Harper, Jeffrey Wright, Wayee Chu, Lisane Basquiat, Jeanine and Herve Heriveaux, Raymond McGuire, and the Capitol One Collection.