Artist Statement

patrick burton is the Creative Director of MRQD. He grew up in Detroit, and received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and MLS, with an emphasis on Queer Studies, from the University of Detroit. Since the late 1980s, he has been actively involved in the Detroit arts community—as a painter, performance artist, poet and culture warrior. As resident artist at Detroit’s 1515 Broadway theater, he created a series of Queer themed performance art pieces, including his critically acclaimed work, Until, which was featured at the 1994 Stonewall 25 Unity Festival in New York City. This transformative theater work was an act of defiance at a time when the LGBTQ community had been numbed with grief and despair in the wake of the AIDS epidemic. Until sparked a much-needed conversation about human rights and the resilience of the human spirit.
As a visual artist, Burton’s extensive exhibition history includes Collected Detroit, Galerie Camille, Revolution Gallery, Ann Arbor Art Center, Gallery Project, and Paul Kotula Projects. His work appears in Essay’d, Volume 2, a book featuring 30 contemporary Detroit artists, published by Wayne State University Press in August 2017.