Charlottetown-Forty-eight breathtaking photographs of shipbreaking beaches, massive piles of old tires and scrap metal, desert-like oil sands, deep-cut quarries and China’s Three Gorges dam will line the walls of the Confederation Centre Art Gallery’s lower west gallery until June 3.
The large photographs are the work of Edward Burtynsky, one of Canada’s most respected photographers, who donated them to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in 2005.
Burtynsky uses a 4 by 5 camera to capture landscapes that have been reshaped through human industry. He explores the intricate link between industry and nature, combining the raw elements of mining, quarrying, manufacturing, shipping, oil production and recycling into eloquent, highly expressive visions that find beauty and humanity in the most unlikely of places.
Born in 1955 at St. Catharines, Ontario, Burtynsky graduated from Ryerson University with his Bachelor of Applied Arts in photography and Niagara College in graphic art. Exhibitions include Manufactured Landscapes at the National Gallery of Canada (2003) and Before the Flood (2003), which were showcased in San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal and London in 2004, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 2005. Burtynsky’s visually compelling works have recently been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across Canada, in the United States, Europe and Asia.
His photographs are included in the collections of 15 major museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Bibliotèque Nationale in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. His images have appeared various periodicals, among them: Art in America, Art News, The Smithsonian, Harper's Magazine, Flash Art, Blind Spot, Art Forum, Saturday Night, Canadian Art, Playboy, National Geographic Society and the New York Times.
Burtynsky’s distinctions include the TED Prize, The Outreach award at the Rencontres d’Arles, The Flying Elephant Fellowship, Applied Arts Magazine book awards and the Roloff Beny Book award. In 2006 he was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of Canada and given an honorary degree; Doctor of Laws, from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. His prints are housed in public, corporate and private collections worldwide.
Other exhibitions on display include Cheap Meat, Dreams and Acorns, by Canadian media artist Ken Gregory; soft block/hard edge, by British Columbia artist Ingrid Mary Percy; and Reading the Picture and Working in Landscape, both of which use works from the gallery’s permanent collection.
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