Ancora, 2011

Artist Statement

Ancora, the Italian word for ‘still’, is a collection of 30 new photographs made during the fall of 2010 and winter of 2011   Inspired partly by the words of various travel writers, bloggers, and Joseph Brodsky’s book, “Watermark”, David Burdeny revisited many former locations and themes from previous images of Japan and courted new areas in Thailand, Vietnam and Hawaii.  
Alone and moving about by foot, car, boat motorcycle and happenstance, the artist sought moments he saw and felt as beautiful, delicate, and mysterious and recorded them with lengthy exposures shortly before dusk or dawn.  As in much of his previous work, Burdeny once again found himself working in rain, fog and mist  – marginal conditions that effectively eliminate extraneous background clutter and deep shadow, to provide minimal and slightly surreal presentations – signature to a Burdeny photograph.Pushing the themes of 2009 Sacred & Secular, the artist experiments with a more social landscape, incorporating the human form into what would have previously been an unpopulated environment. Photographed from distant vantage points, these figures reference the romantic tradition where small humans figures stand in contrast to an immense landscape, thereby reinforcing the notion we are close, but still to far from nature.The photographs are exposed with a 4×5 and 8×10 field camera onto slow speed colour transparency film.  Filtering the light at the moment of exposure, which involves a variety of neutral density and coloured filters, achieves the soft color palate. Further adjustments were made at the printing stage to achieve a common color density throughout this exciting new series of images.

Artist Biography

David Burdeny initiated his career with the Jennifer Kostuik Gallery in 2001 and has been exhibiting his images from the world over, including Antarctica, Iceland, Brazil, China, Burma, Cambodia, France, Italy, Canada and the USA. Known for his finely composed photographs, Burdeny has spent the past 25 years exploring a variegated photographic Landscape ranging from minimal seascapes, ornate European interiors to abstract aerial images. Widely collected in Canada, the USA, Asia and Europe, the sheer beauty of David’s images has firmly placed him within the realm of Canada’s most sought after photo-based artists. Burdeny has an innate curiosity for new subjects and themes, producing over 20 themed photographic series. Be it mounting a camera beneath a self-built drone, shooting from the deck of an Antarctic bound icebreaker, or waiting for an ocean tide to advance, he faithfully embeds his own formal signature into each and every image, further expressing a life long passion for the built environment and the camera’s interpretation of it.

David Burdeny’s Masters in Architecture and Interior Design background combined with his upbringing in the vast Canadian prairies provides the template for his keen technical ability, enduring patience and minimalist aesthetic.

Pricing

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