Edward Burtynsky’s Uneasy Beauty
Edward Burtynsky’s exhibit at the Surrey Art Gallery opens today. A Canadian photographer and 2005 winner of the prestigious TED prize, Mr. Burtynsky uses a large format camera to document the human force on the landscape and create surreal, otherworldly, and sometimes unrecognizable imagery. The photographs are beautiful in their ugliness.
Several of his images are posted below with many more available at Burtynsky’s website and The Charles Cowles Gallery. Unfortunately, these small’ish web versions don’t do much justice to his work, and given the artist’s eye for details, a visit to Surrey is more than worthwhile. A few of these pictorial nuggets are visible in the video below from Burtynsky’s visit to CBC’s The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos.
Burtynsky’s film, “Manufactured Landscapes,” won Best Documentary at the 2007 Genie Awards. I’ve got it in my hands and I’ll watch it before visiting the show next weekend. The exhibition is part of Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad programming.
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Edward Burtynsky: An Uneasy Beauty – Photographs of Western Canada
January 17 – March 22, 2009
Exhibition reception: January 24, 2 – 4pm
Film Screening: February 1, 2:30pm
Artist Talk: February 12, 7pm
Surrey Art Gallery
13750 – 88 Avenue
Surrey, BC Canada V3W 3L1
Edward Burtysky's Rock of Ages # 1
Edward Burtynsky's Oxford Tire Pile No. 7
Edward Burtynsky Homesteads #29
Edward Burtynsky's Tailings #1
Edward Burtynsky's Nickel Tailings No. 35,
Thanks to The Scale Gallery for alerting me to the exhibit.
Stranger explores documentary and candid street photography, disseminates multimedia to gain a wider perspective, and shares upcoming visual and fine art events in the Metro Vancouver scene. The Editor and Curator of Stranger is John Goldsmith, a freelance photographer and owner of 
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I went to the Surrey Art Gallery, and I was extremely impressed. The large format images have amazing detail. I was most impressed by the mining and oil drilling images, because of the ugly / beauty juxtaposition in the situation of destroying some of the natural environment. It’s so eye opening. Also, I hadn’t realized that the images were going to be all shots taken in Canada, nor did I know that Edward Burtynsky donated the photographs to the art gallery!