ARTIST STATEMENTPeter Burega infuses his sumptuous paintings with a personal vision of nature as a place of light and color. That vision redefines the relationship between nature and art. It is as though, in his paintings, Burega liberates nature from the constraints of time, history and specificity, to allow it to emerge on his canvas, fully re-imagined, as unbound consciousness of the pure beauty of nature. With a unique pictorial language, Burega gracefully paints contemplative moods that conjoin viewers' imaginations with his own in this new way of looking at nature. Burega's paintings offer not a mimetic representation but, more richly, a feeling of being in nature itself. His paintings express spirit of nature rather than its anatomy. Burega dissolves specificity of image into essence of color, line, and light that he then choreographs through his subconscious into the pictorial structure of his paintings, to create what seems like pure sensation. His evocative compositions enlist the unconscious and activate feelings, even passions, about places of beauty one has experienced but which have been concealed in the folds of memory – the way a long-unheard piece of beautiful music might do. Burega's inward response to nature is disclosed in the interaction of various creative elements that include nuances of color deftly applied in layers using only a metal scraping tool and worked with the finesse of a symphonic conductor. Color harmonies and radiance of light combine with pentimento and deft marks incised in the painting's surface to produce dynamic rhythms that set the emotional tone of the painting. Subtlety of structure, composition and the richness of fine glazing complete the complexity of painterly invention contained in each work. One can imagine a Burega painting as a unitary soul-moving vision of nature or as a pastiche of various lively experiences interwoven into a single painting. Both are valid and either way magic can reside in a mere corner, as well as in the painting as a whole. His paintings engender a transcendent sense of joy that renews a weary spirit. They create a reverie of beauty that ineluctably seduces a viewer's contemplative regard and sustains a high level of visual interest that will endure forever.