A Prairie Town

 

David Burdeny, Guy’s Lunch and Grocery, Saskatchewan, CA, 2020 at Kostuik Gallery

“A Prairie Town.” -Debbie Chan

Currently exhibiting in the Kostuik Gallery, Vancouver, Canada. A Prairie Town features a series of digital photographs by David Burdeny. In this series, Burdeny drew from his roots growing up in the prairies of Canada. A common feature of the series is the bleak background of the front angle buildings in the heart of winter. That is characteristic of the way Canada is known for its cold winters in other parts of the world. The minimalist style of photography takes into account every single detail of the surroundings of the building. His images often feature both natural and man-made structures in harmony with one another such as forests and telephone wires to frame the space that the buildings occupy. His minimalistic style allows these structures to counterbalance one another. The rotting slats of the building, the tiny window frames and the way they’re echoed in the dark pink trimming. And there’s a horizon line, the line where the bottom of the house meets the snow, and the super super delicate electric cables. The way the lines travel across the image call to attention the flatness of the medium this artwork resides in. The buildings themselves are never taken at an angle, providing a beautiful aesthetic simplicity that allow these old, often abandoned looking structures to stand out against the white snowy background. As only the storefront is visible in most photos, these beautiful structures look straight out of a pre-CGI movie set.

In an interview with the Merritt Gallery, Burdeny mentions that his background in architecture design subconsciously influenced his decisions in photography style that leans towards his talent for highlighting the minute details that add character to his landscapes. For example his series of aerial photos taken with a drone in the Netherlands of the tulip fields, Tulips 10, Noordoostpolder, Netherlands, 2016. Zoomed out to the point the fields of flowers were reduced to rows of red, pink and purple colors. The maximization of inclusion to the point where details are lost allowed the couple of bare patches in the otherwise populated field to be read as design elements.  His other works are taken from all across the globe, majority being focused on landscape photography. His images have a distinct suggestion of depth between the background and foreground. Sometimes as if the background and foreground were taken separately and layered over on another. 

Framed in isolation with no neighboring buildings in sight, there is a sublime quality to these photographs. In these photos, there is an erasure of the human presence, the lack of reflection of the photographer in the glass windows, as the viewer these places seem unreachable. In the same interview, Burdeny says that while he takes his image in the highest definition possible in order to capture as many details as he can, he still wants to draw attention to the medium of the photograph and does so by desaturating the image a little. The lower vibrancy lends to the nostalgia and romanticism of the image. Seemingly abandoned, with no way to know the stories these structures hold, lost in nature, lost in time. No markings in the snow to indicate any movement toward these buildings, though the temporal nature of snow makes this observation hard to trust. The snow, the trees, the narrow door, the three windows, the crumbling wooden panels with peeling pink paint and awning bent with the weight of time all stand out with the help of the simplicity of the composition. Each photo borrows from its existing environment, in his photography, Burdeny allows each element in his frame to play off one another. Telephone lines, horizons and rooftops often in parallel with the edge of the image. The architectural shapes of the buildings are outlined and highlighted by its background; framed by nature. When learning how to draw, we always start with lines that evolve into shapes. The way the buildings have been simplified almost into mere shapes of colors and lines of telephone poles calls to mind the basics of image making. The ways of seeing that although we live in a world of dimension. How we see and what we perceive is just an image. In thinking about seeing and drawing processes, the simplicity of his composition with the straight angles of the buildings resemble the way we drew houses as kids. A realized vision of when we drew from imagination and from how we think a house should be rather than how they are.

Works Cited

Marta Dahó (2019) LANDSCAPE AND THE GEOGRAPHICAL TURN IN PHOTOGRAPHIC PRACTICE, photographies, 12:2, 227-248, DOI: 10.1080/17540763.2019.1577289

Burdeny, David. “DAVID BURDENY  : Photographs : Netherlands 2015-2016.” DAVID BURDENY, https://www.davidburdeny.com/photographs/netherlands-2015-2016/1. Accessed 16 Apr. 2021.

“David Burdeny: Order Within the Chaos | Merritt Gallery.” Merritt Gallery, https://www.facebook.com/merrittgallery.renaissancefinearts/, 8 Nov. 2019, https://www.merrittgallery.com/david-burdeny-order-within-the-chaos/.

“David Burdeny Photographs | Gilman Contemporary.” Gilman Contemporary, https://www.gilmancontemporary.com/artists/david-burdeny/#prettyPhoto. Accessed 16 Apr. 2021.

Network, Knowledge. David Burdeny - 12 Takes | Knowledge Network. YouTube, 22 Sept. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fWanRawnBM.