David Burdeny

nnnnBorn in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada, (1968) David Burdeny has a degree in Interior design and a Masters degree in Architecture. At the age of 12, David started to photograph the prairie landscape and make his own black and white prints in a makeshift darkroom that also served as his bedroom closet. Primarily self taught, his architecture and design background greatly influences his penchant for simple exacting photographs of sky, horizon and the marks humankind leaves behind. Influenced by notable photographers Michael Kenna, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Fay Goodwin, David purposefully photographs in poor light and near darkness. Moving beyond the literal, his images have been described as ominous, haunting, beautiful and meditative.
nnnn"Shorelines"
nnnn“Made along the shorelines of Japan, Northern France, and the Pacific Northwest this recent body of work thematically continues my interest in the thresholds that divide and connect the sea to land. Through these journeys I attempt to communicate a universality or homogeneity in these disparate locations.
nnnn“I’m fascinated with the quality of light and the spatial immensity the ocean possesses. I have an enormous reverence for feeling so small in the presence of something so vast, where perspective, scale, time and distance momentarily become intangible. My photographs contemplate that condition, and through their reductiveness, suggest a formalized landscape we rarely see. The glory lies not in the act of this removal or reduction, but in the experience of what is left - sublime experience located in ordinary space: a slowly moving sky, the sun moving across a boulders surface or seafoam swirling around a pylon.
nnnn“Exposed onto large format black and white film under the soft light of dusk and dawn, the shutter is held open for several minutes at a time, recording the ocean and sky as it continuously repositions itself on the negative, a process both dependent and vulnerable to chance. The resultant image is an accretion of past and present. Each moment is layered over the moment immediately preceding it – a single image that embodies the weight of cumulative time and unending metamorphosis.
nnnn“Drift” is a series of moving and still images. Collected during travels through Canada, France, Japan, England, Belgium and the USA, these photographs catalogue the shifting light and color of the world’s oceans and shorelines. “I’m fascinated with the quality of light and the spatial immensity the ocean possesses. I have an enormous reverence for feeling so small in the presence of something so vast, where perspective, scale, time and distance momentarily become intangible.” Using a variety of analogue and digital mediums that closely parallel racetrack photo finish technology, the images invert conventional photographic motion/time relationships. Motion is rendered still and still is rendered in motion, graphically revealing the underlying rhythms and patterns of the physical world while tracing our navigation through it."

nnnn— David Burdeny, Vancouver, 2006
A Selection Solo Shows:

2007 – (May) Specific Gravity, Young Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
2007 - (March) Specific Gravity, Jennifer Kostuik Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
2007 - (March) Drift, Exposure 2007, Herringer Kiss Gallery, Calgary Alberta, Canada
2006 - Shorelines, Atlanta Celebrates Photography, Davis Waldron Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia
2006 - Photographs, 3x10 Seattle, Washington, USA
2005 - Shorelines, Jennifer Kostuik Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
2004 - Hollinger Collins Art Contemporain, Montreal, Canada
2004 - Sur-Mer, Jennifer Kostuik Gallery, Vancouver Canada
A Selection Group Shows:
2006 - Mariners Museum, Newport News , Virginia
2006 - International Photography Gathering in Aleppo, Syria
2006 - Art For Aids, Invited Group show with: Nick Brandt, Nadav Kandar, Jillian Edelstein,
2006 -Annie Leibowitz and others. Elliott Louis Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada
2006 – New Artists Group show, Gallery; Herringer Kiss Gallery, Calgary Alberta, Canada
2006 – Group Show Image 54 Gallery, Calgary, Alberta Canada
2006 - IPA Best of Show, Farmani Gallery Los Angeles, California
2006 - Here are Your Waters, Green Foundation, Seoul, Korea
2006 - IPA Best of Show, Palm Springs, California
2006 - Photographs by Burdeny, McNair, Holownia, Hollinger Collins Art Contemporain, Montreal, Canada
The Iris Gallery of Fine Art Photography
47 Railroad Street • Great Barrington, MA 01230
413 644 0045 • Thursday – Sunday Noon - 6:00
70 Charles St • Boston, MA 02114
617 895 8951 • Tuesday – Sunday 11 - 6