Edward Burtynsky: Natural Order

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In spring 2020 Edward Burtynsky found himself, like most of us, in lockdown due to the corona pandemic. At the time Burtynsky was in his beloved Grey County, Ontario-an area of wild beauty where he made his earliest photos-and he used his isolation there to reflect and create: with a new camera in hand he began recording nature in images which, in his words, are an "affirmation of the complexity, wonder and resilience of the natural order in all things."

Over the past 40 years Burtynsky has compellingly explored the shocking variety and scale of industrialized landscapes, from oil refineries to quarries, from aquaculture to salt extraction. Yet in Natural Order he captures a moment when mankind has been temporarily stopped in its tracks, businesses suspended and economies disrupted-a moment for nature to breathe. These photos of trees and other flora show nature on the dynamic cusp between winter and spring, a time of melting snow, sprouting shoots and the promise of bounty: for Burtynsky, "an enduring order that remains intact regardless of our own human fate."

We are of, and inseparable from, nature. - Edward Burtynsky

Reviews

These photos, he writes, were "made during the time of year when the cycle of renewal exerts itself on the earth," [...] Natural Order emphasizes the order part: he has selected photographs of trees whose branches curve and tangle to resemble neural networks, or are strikingly perpendicular to their trunks, evoking street grids. We can see each tendril of grass and branch in detail, but the colors generally coalesce into a uniform reddish-gray.--Mark Athitakis "On the Seawall"
Last year, early in the pandemic, Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky was isolating in rural Ontario, where he's long owned a place. Over the course of those uncertain weeks, he photographed the transition, as he describes it, "from the frigid sleep of winter to the fecund urgency of spring." Compiled into a monograph, titled Natural Order, the images show the earth continuing on its path even as human activity slowed to a standstill.-- "Wall Street Journal"

Author Bio

Edward Burtynsky's remarkable photographic depictions of large-scale industrial landscapes are included in the collections of over 60 major museums including the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Burtynsky's distinctions include the TED Prize, the Outreach Award at the Rencontres d'Arles and the Roloff Beny Book Award. He sits on the board of directors for the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival and the Ryerson Gallery and Research Center, and is co-founder of the Scotiabank Photography Award. In 2006 Burtynsky was made Officer of the Order of Canada and in 2016 he received the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts. Burtynsky holds seven honorary doctoral degrees. His books with Steidl are China (2005), Quarries (2007), Oil (2009), Water (2013), Salt Pans (2016) and Anthropocene (2018).