An artist exploring what the gap between the media's message and the audience's reality looks like.
Novo-Surrealism
Zaratan Air Residency Project Page
with fiscal sponsorship by Fractured Atlas
Click here for full CV
Photos from the Residency
Residency Blog

This is the project page for Greg Mason Burns' residency to take place at Zaratan in Lisbon, Portugal in January, 2017. All updates will be made here as well as on my Fractured Atlas page.
Fiscal Sponsorship is provided by Fractured Atlas, which means that your donations are tax-deductible. Novo-Surrealism Residency in Lisbon, Portugal is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Novo-Surrealism Residency in Lisbon, Portugal must be made payable to Fractured Atlas only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. This can be done by check or online at: https://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/fiscal/profile?id=14638.
Support can also be made via checks. All checks should be made out to Fractured Atlas and then mailed to:
69 Mt Desert St
Bar Harbor, ME 04609 USA
On the envelope you can use Greg Burns as the addressee, but the check cannot be made out to me. However, you can put my project's name in the memo line of the check: Novo-Surrealism.
Fiscal Sponsorship is provided by Fractured Atlas, which means that your donations are tax-deductible. Novo-Surrealism Residency in Lisbon, Portugal is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Novo-Surrealism Residency in Lisbon, Portugal must be made payable to Fractured Atlas only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. This can be done by check or online at: https://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/fiscal/profile?id=14638.
Support can also be made via checks. All checks should be made out to Fractured Atlas and then mailed to:
69 Mt Desert St
Bar Harbor, ME 04609 USA
On the envelope you can use Greg Burns as the addressee, but the check cannot be made out to me. However, you can put my project's name in the memo line of the check: Novo-Surrealism.
Current Donators:
- Mira Monte Inn, Bar Harbor, ME - Benefactor
- Contributor - Benjamin Bond
- Contributor - Ann Burns
Scheduled Events:
- Zaratan Air Residency - Jan 2017
- Exhibit: Northeast Harbor, ME Library - April, 2017
- Exhibit: Southwest Harbor, ME Library - November, 2017
Zaratan Acceptance Letter |
Project Budget |
Novo-Surrealism: The Project
This project takes the media’s message and contrasts that against the audience’s understanding of the truth, which assumes a gap between the two. However, instead of treating this gap simply as a concept I’m asking the question: if this gap were a place, what would it look like? What would the people look like, their cars, houses, where would their kids go to school? So this project explores the surreal idea that the gap between the media’s message and the audience’s understanding of the truth is a place that might actually exist.
I’ve developed this project mostly in Brazil, particularly during the contentious impeachment of Brazil’s President Dilma. As an artist with a journalism degree, this specific controversial period in Brazil’s history sparked the curiosity that created this project.
Novo-surrealism is much more aligned with Conceptual Art than Surrealism itself. I have called it such because of the irrational juxtaposition of the media and the audience in real life. This project is nothing about dreams. Neo-surrealism, which already exists, is simply a more modern extension of surrealism itself. Novo-surrealism uses the Portuguese word “new” both because of its original inspiration and because I am redefining surrealism as we know it by moving it outside the specter of dreams and into the real world, thus the new term.
I am the only person doing this, so this is not just a valid art discussion, it is completely new with the potential to become something quite important. It is also very flexible, so any form of art is applicable, thus giving it the potential to be an actual movement with a lot of growth. You would be entering this partnership at a point where the project just beginning to take off. Imagine the possibilities of this concept presented in this manner on a global scale.
The next step is to develop this project in another country, Portugal, and then to exhibit my findings from the residency, preferably in the summer of 2017. After that one of my specific goals is to introduce this idea at the 2018 Biennale for the Center for Maine Contemporary Art. This residency should play a large part in achieving this last goal.