Edward Burtynsky
Edward Burtynsky (b. 1955) is one of Canada’s preeminent artists. His large format photographs of global industrial landscapes are included in the collections of over sixty major museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California.
Early exposure to the sites and images of the General Motors plant in his hometown helped to formulate the development of his photographic work. His imagery explores the collective impact we as a species are having on the surface of the planet and an inspection of the human systems we've imposed onto natural landscapes.
Burtynsky’s work is the subject of three documentary feature films. Manufactured Landscapes (2006) follows the artist to China, as he captures the effects of the country’s massive industrial revolution. Watermark (2012) brings together diverse stories from around the globe about our relationship with water: how we are drawn to it, how we use it and the consequences of that use. Anthropocene (2018) investigates the human influence on the state, dynamic, and future of the Earth.