EDWARD BURTYNSKY NEW RELEASES
Edward Burtynsky, ShellBeach#2,SharkBay,WA,Australia, 202 5
Last May, Edward Burtynsky visited Western Australia to shoot mines for his upcoming project, Mining: For the Future . While he was looking specifically at copper and lithium mines, he was struck by the remarkable beauty of Shark Bay, a World Heritage Site and the most western point on the continent. He flew along the coastline in a Cessna, scouting out the most compelling vantage points. In Shell Beach #2 , Burtynsky is about 500 feet above sea level. Most of the composition is underwater except for a narrow sandbar with tracks of a vehicle that are scarcely visible but indicate human scale. From his bird's eye perspective, the colour and natural contours of the landscape reminded Burtynsky of a Japanese print. The white areas in the photograph are in fact made up of tiny seashells. This photoshoot marks Burtynsky's third annual homage to nature, where he finds a pristine landscape to both juxtapose his photographs of human industry and inspire hope.
Edward Burtynsky, DryTailings#1,Kolwezi,DemocraticRepublicof theCongo, 2024
Burtynsky visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo in late 2024 to shoot mines, specifically those for materials needed for new energy sources. DryTailings#1illustrates the mounds of overburden or dry tailings from the Kolwezi copper mine there. To capture this photograph, Burtynsky scouted the specific spot from a helicopter before shooting from his drone camera the next day. His drone allows for multiple, consecutive images to be stitched together to create a mega file resulting in an uncanny level of detail. On close inspection, approximately one hundred tiny figures can be seen all over the mine, resembling ants. These are the artisanal miners, scouring the dry tailings from the copper mine for cobalt. Cobalt is another mineral found in this area, but the trace amounts do not make it profitable to process on a large scale. What emerges is a dangerous and largely unregulated market for cobalt, the mineral that is responsible for keeping many electronics cool including our iPhones.
Edward Burtynsky , TailingsPond#1,KamoaKakula,DemocraticRepublicof theCongo, 2024
Another compelling new release from Burtynsky's shoot in the DRC last year is TailingsPond#1 . It is a hauntingly poetic photograph of a tree that is still alive, growing in the middle of a tailings pond from the adjacent Kamoa Kakula copper mine. Green oxidation can be seen on the tree’s lower branches while natural green leaves grow above. Shot from a drone camera about 20 – 30 feet from the ground, what at first appears to be a tree in a lake slowly comes into focus. It can perhaps be read as a metaphor for nature’s resilience.
Edward Burtynsky, Rainforest#3,OlympicNationalPark,Washington,USA, 2024
This photograph from Olympic National Park in Washington State evokes the atmosphere of a mystical, fairytale forest, underscoring nature’s enduring beauty. This work is an intriguing counterpoint to other new releases by Burtynsky which depict expansive copper mining operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His vantage point from the ground highlights a distinctive characteristic in Burtynsky's photographs, his ability to fnd 'order in chaos'. It is a skill he honed early on in his career, shooting landscapes in Canada and the US in the early 1980s. Some of these are currently on view in his major career survey currently on view in The Great Acceleration at the International Center of Photography in New York City.
Edward Burtynsky , CoastMountains#13,MountWaddingtonGlacier,BritishColumbia,Canada , 2023
CoastMountainsin British Columbia in 2023 marked Burtynsky's first and now annual homage to nature. The glaciers he encountered there are some of the last at this latitude on the planet. He flew over the area in August 2023 during wildfire season in the province. The skies were heavy with smoke and offered an even 'democratic' quality of natural light which Burtynsky favours during his shoots. The details within the glacier in the photograph seem uncanny and are often mistaken for a painted surface when viewed in person. This work is also on view currently in The Coast Mountains: Recent Works byEdwardBurtynskyat the Audain Museum in Whistler, BC.
