Edward Burtynsky

Edward Burtynsky is one of Canada’s most respected photographers. His work is in the collections of major museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art, and Guggenheim Museum in New York, and has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across Canada and around the world.

Of all the industries that Burtynsky has investigated over the years (mining, quarrying, manufacturing, shipping, recycling), none is more important than that of oil. Operating by the strength of its own product as well as making all others possible, the oil industry is the cornerstone of our society in more ways than we often consider. But as the exhaustion of the earth’s oil reserves becomes a real possibility, these images represent a present and possible future of the oil industry. 

Burtynsky intends his images to “search for a dialogue between attraction and repulsion, seduction and fear”, while exploring the intricate connection between industry and nature. At a time when this relationship is increasingly scrutinised, Burtynsky’s images take us to places that we might not otherwise see, their strange beauty forcing us to keep looking, and start thinking.