A self-taught artist, Amanda “Rusti” Burkman’s career began in 2005 exhibiting work at Phoenix Gallery in Sacramento, CA. Approximately 6 years later life and medical experiences provided Rusti with an opportunity to focus on her studio career, a path she has exclusively followed ever since. She has artwork featured in private collections across the US, stretching from California to Virginia. In 2014 Rusti collaborated with poet Perry Anan Rose to publish “Rooted in Grace”. Her artwork was featured by the Bernie Sander’s 2016 and 2020 Presidential campaign. From 2016 - 2019 Rusti appeared in multiple live art performances for charitable fundraising. She is responsible for numerous murals, public artworks, and earthworks throughout the US.

 

The passion driving Rusti flows from a love of music, a deep connection with community, and an intense desire to bring more beauty into the world through artwork. By infusing these aesthetics into a new style of painting, she developed her ongoing “Paint Chip Mosaic Series.” Each painting in this series has its own allure, depth, and meaning but still is physically intertwined with the paintings that have come before. By reusing dried paint scraped off of her marble easel, Rusti creates a vivid palette that breathes new life into the colors. She captures the essence of her subjects as these fragments—each beautifully unique—come together and fuse to become whole. Paintings range from figurative to abstract and often portray landscapes, portraits of people she greatly admires or who have been major influences on her, and surrealism that reflects the human form within the exquisite patterns of nature.