Artist Joe Burns wants to bring people together with his paintings of immigrants

Joe Burns is not trying to infuriate anyone with his oil paintings of immigrants.

"There's rhetoric out there that immigrants are terrible people — rapists and murderers — and I just knew that to be completely false. I love doing portraits and was looking for another project, about a year and four months ago," Burns said. "I wanted to put my spin on immigration out there. Every immigrant I know is a hardworking American person who has fought hard to be here and is making a living."

"Facing America" will be on display on the second floor of Capella Tower in Minneapolis until Oct. 31.

Burns returned to school and began painting full time in 2011. "I went to the Atelier, a classical realism school in Minneapolis, for four years," he said. "Before that I was a commercial artist, freelancing doing package design, working for smaller companies.

"I'm a white guy who hasn't seen [much discrimination] so I get a lot from the news. I have not had the struggles some of these people have gone through, but one of the subjects in my show, Victor Sanchez, was a wrestler of mine; I coached wrestling at Southwest High until two years ago. I have seen immigrants come through the high school. I've seen the problems that they've had getting into college and everything else."

Growing up in Fairmont, Minn., Burns might have come away from that small-town environment with a few prejudices. But he didn't. "It helped that I had a Panamanian friend and a black friend [Mike Biehler and Bob Eppard, with whom he remains close] and good parents. They were both teachers," said Burns. "I just like people. … If you can hold a conversation and laugh and have fun, I'll enjoy that."

The hatred some hold for those of different races or religions, "I can't figure it out," said Burns. "On [social media] I got some hate mail, after I was on WCCO-TV. I don't care. Ya know, I'm a big boy. I can handle myself. I didn't do [these paintings] to infuriate people but hopefully bring some people together."

A: One was a job and one was a passion. I just wanted to see if …

Q: Say no more!

A: [Laughter] I'm very lucky my wife [Kris] has a good job. Let me put it that way. [Laughter] Everybody's a struggling artist and I've got a very good wife who puts up with it.

Q: So you get your health insurance from her?

A: I get my health insurance, I get my clothes, I get my food. [Laughter] I get everything from her. That's right.

A: About 40 hours, sometimes 50, 30.

Q: What do you have trouble painting? I am not on your level as a self-taught painter, but hands are impossible for me.

A: Hands? I love hands, but I hate teeth. I can't stand 'em.

Q: You paint teeth very well, but you prefer subjects who don't smile showing teeth?

A: That's right. [Laugh]. Mine either look too perfect and the rest of the face doesn't or the rest of the face looks really good and it looks like the person has a mouth guard on or something.

A: Isn't that the truth.

Q: Any trepidation as subjects view their portraits for the first time?

A: As an artist you put yourself out there. I'm a little sheepish about going up [to a subject] when they first see their portrait. Some are extremely happy and some you can tell don't know exactly what to think.

Q: What feedback do you get from your wife while painting?

A: Famous comment from my wife, my harshest critic and the person who loves my work the most: Are you done? I'll show her a painting and every time she'll say [that]. And it's like: "Oh, I thought I was but by that statement I guess I'm not now."

A: Yeah, I was at a Super Bowl party and talked to someone about what I was working on. … The next day, she was onboard. It worked out real easy.