The Wood Swallows Me
Description
Xanthe Burdett is an artist from Devon, England who lives and works in London. Her artistic oeuvre is mainly composed of paintings, drawings, and larger installations. She holds a MA Painting from the Royal College of Art and received her BA in Education, English, and Drama from Cambridge University. In her work, Burdett questions the distinctions between nature and humanity, exploring the body in nature and the body as nature in her work.
In The Wood Swallows Me, Burdett’s body is faintly outlined, its substance formed by rising foliage that reaches up to her torso, allowing the upper half of her body to merge with the sky. To her left, a dog is also faintly outlined. Its mouth, the only opaquely rendered form in the painting, hangs open layered over Burdett’s thigh. By layering and entangling elements of the human and the non-human—a human leg, a leaf, and a dog's mouth visibly occupy the same space as other aspects of their bodies remain invisible—she blurs the line between where one living form stops and another begins.
Burdett’s work not only interweaves humanity and nature on a canvas, it also exists within a web of representations and experiences of nature, both personal and cultural, becoming a node in the history of how humanity and nature interact. As a collective humanity, we participate in a web of symbiotic relationships, in a shared ecosystem. It has become clear that our interaction with nature is inevitable, as we are confronted with the physical realities of our disregard for nature. Therefore, we must be aware of the ways in which we interact if we do not want our interaction to be harmful.
CAPP Committee Selection 2024 - 2025
Tenth Cycle
In The Wood Swallows Me, Burdett’s body is faintly outlined, its substance formed by rising foliage that reaches up to her torso, allowing the upper half of her body to merge with the sky. To her left, a dog is also faintly outlined. Its mouth, the only opaquely rendered form in the painting, hangs open layered over Burdett’s thigh. By layering and entangling elements of the human and the non-human—a human leg, a leaf, and a dog's mouth visibly occupy the same space as other aspects of their bodies remain invisible—she blurs the line between where one living form stops and another begins.
Burdett’s work not only interweaves humanity and nature on a canvas, it also exists within a web of representations and experiences of nature, both personal and cultural, becoming a node in the history of how humanity and nature interact. As a collective humanity, we participate in a web of symbiotic relationships, in a shared ecosystem. It has become clear that our interaction with nature is inevitable, as we are confronted with the physical realities of our disregard for nature. Therefore, we must be aware of the ways in which we interact if we do not want our interaction to be harmful.
CAPP Committee Selection 2024 - 2025
Tenth Cycle
Creator
Xanthe Burdett
Date
2024
Files
Citation
Xanthe Burdett, “The Wood Swallows Me,” Contemporary Art Purchasing Program - Stamp Gallery, accessed March 12, 2026, https://contemporaryartumd.artinterp.org/omeka/items/show/150.