Dread Sovereign
Entering Jonathan McBurnie’s survey exhibition is like visiting one of countless scenes in Hollywood thriller and horror films, when the hero detective finally discovers the lair of a murderous psychopath. The room is dark, and the walls are plastered floor to ceiling with figurative drawings of nudity, gore, and obtuse superhero scenarios, as well as urgent, block letter messages with dubious meaning. It is easy to consider such rampant production the result of obsessive behaviour, and in a way, it is, but in McBurnie’s case the driver is closer to a biological compulsion.
The reason McBurnie draws superheroes is closely linked with why he draws at all, and like such characters his practice has a compelling origin story. Diagnosed with leukaemia in his late teens, the artist was forced to endure chemotherapy for extended stints in hospital. While most who presently face the same situation would likely binge countless streaming entertainment options or immerse themselves in social media, McBurnie’s only recourse from the consistent chemically induced nausea, apart from equally nauseating daytime television, was drawing and reading comics. He chose the latter activities: drawing allowed him to refocus on sensual material and psychological output, and comics permitted escape into their allegorical universes and heroes who derive power from their conditions. Prior to his illness, McBurnie had studied animation, but confronted rather early in life with his own mortality, and engrossed in this world of imaginative expression and immediate creation, the artist decided that all he wanted to do was draw. Given these circumstances, it is not implausible to infer that the act of drawing kept him alive, since it sustained him though his treatment for a fatal disease. Thus, McBurnie’s practice, subject