$10US ISBN 978-0-9858492-9-0

Railyard Arts District 1613 Paseo de Peralta Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com above: On the Crevasse, 2013, 40" x 60" cover: Spert Island, January 17, 2013, 30" x 30"

© 2014 LewAllen Contemporary LLC All photos © Diane Burko

LewAllenGalleries

LewAllenGalleries

Diane burkoi n v e s t i g a t i o n s o f t h e e n v i r o n m e n t

DIANE BURKO

SElEctED SOlO ExhIBItIONS

2014 Diane Burko–Photographs: Investigations of the Environment, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

2013 Diane Burko: Glacial Perspectives, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

2012 Water Matters, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

2011 New Photographs: Water, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Politics of Snow II, Bernstein Gallery–Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, NJ

2010 Politics of Snow, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Imprints in the Landscape, Philagrafika – Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2007 Invitational: Four Alumni, Tang Museum Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY

2006 Diane Burko: New Work in Photography, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Flow, Tufts University Art Gallery, Boston, MA, traveled to: James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, PA

2005 Landscapes: Paint/Pixel, Rider University Art Gallery, Lawrenceville, NJ

2004 Earth Water Fire Ice, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2001 Diane Burko: The Volcano Series, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

1999 A Sense of Place: Paintings by Diane Burko, The Parthenon Museum, Nashville, TN

1995-96 Land Survey: 1979-1995–Paintings by Diane Burko, Payne Gallery, Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA

Luci ed Ombra di Bellagio–The Light and Shadow of Bellagio, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

1994 Estampes: Works on Paper, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia

1992 Diane Burko at Giverny, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.

1991 Reflets–Paintings from Giverny, Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

1988 Solo, Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (also 1979, 1976)

1987 Fifteen Years–1972-1987, Hollins College, Roanoke, VA

1983 Waterways of Pennsylvania, traveled to: Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA; Westmoreland County Museum of Art, Westmoreland, PA; Museum of Art, Penn State University, College Park, PA; Reading Public Museum, Reading, PA; Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA; Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

1982 Mabel Smith Douglass Library Gallery, Rutgers University, Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series, New Brunswick, NJ

Stefanotti Gallery, New York, NY (also 1980)

1980 The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Morris Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA

1979 First Distinguished Alumni Award Exhibition, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York, NY

Genesis Galleries, Ltd., New York, NY

1977 Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ

1976 Dealer Showcase, O.K. Harris Gallery, New York, NY

SElEctED GRANtS, FEllOWShIPS, AWARDS & cOMMISSIONS

Arctic Circle Residency, Fall 2013

Rockefeller Residence Fellowship–Bellagio Study and Conference Center, September 1993

National Endowment for the Arts Visual Arts Fellowship, 1991-92, 1985-86

Residence Fellowship at Giverny, Readers Digest Foundation, April-September 1989

Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Individual Artists Grant, 1989, 1981

SElEctED PUBlIc cOllEctIONS

Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, NH

The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Colgate University, Picker Art Gallery, Hamilton, NY

James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, PA

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

Pew Charitable Trusts, Washington, DC

The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA

Reading Public Museum, Reading, PA

Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA

BORN Brooklyn, NY, 1945 Lives and Works in Philadelphia & Bucks County, PA

EDUcAtION 1966 Skidmore College, BA—Painting & Art History

1969 University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Fine Arts, MFA

Crevasse Surge 1, 2013, 30" x 30"

LewAllenGalleries

cover: Spert Island, January 17, 2013, archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

DIANE BURKOINVESTIGATIONS OF THE ENVIRONMENT

SEPTEMBER 26 - NOVEMBER 2. 2014

Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com

Diane Burko INVESTIGATIONS OF THE ENVIRONMENT

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ARTIST STATEMENTI have always been fascinated with the dramatic landscape. Monumental mountain ranges such as the Himalayas and the Grand Canyon were some of my first subjects. Then I studied plate tectonics as I developed a series on the world’s volcanoes, which later led to paintings and photographs of the major waterfalls of Iceland. My artistic investigations have led me to the far reaches of the earth where I could witness first-hand a range of terrains that have been altered through momentous geological events.

From these investigations emerged a body of photographs which unite my growing scientific interest in geology with purely formal artistic concerns and the push-pull of abstract forms within the picture plane.

Since 2007, I have been intensely focused on how glacial activity will impact the future of our planet. While I realize that issues of sustainability, extinctions and population growth can all contribute to our demise, I choose to focus on climate change as our major threat. This current obsession takes

me to polar regions where I seek images of ice as the major indicator of climate change.

While my practice is currently located at this intersection of art and science, there have been many other projects developed from other motivations. With all my work I strive for images that are as conceptually strong as they are aesthetically viable. Sometimes, however, it is the beauty found in nature (rather than the threats to it) that prevails. Perhaps, though, it is this beauty that is the most poignant warning of what is at stake in protecting our environment.

My photography is informed by having been a painter since the early 1970s. That practice influences the color, atmosphere, space and organization. It determines the purpose of my photographs..

It is always about the landscape. Initially, the camera served as a vehicle for visual notations on the environments I explored throughout the world—a reference tool for my large-scale paintings. But beginning in 2000, photography

Kronebreen: Above/Below, 2013, archival inkjet print, 40” x 80”, each image 20” x 20”

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became an end in itself, another way to respond—providing an alternate mode of investigation resulting in atypical views where nature is abstract, ambiguous—often aerial and sometimes mysterious. The lens allows for close examination of the multifaceted, intricate structures of nature, movement and light in real time. It can also reveal broad, expansive, vertiginous vistas. However, paradoxically I don’t always want to capture the broad vista. I am also interested in contrasts of color, space, the close and far.

Extreme landscape suggests ideas of landscapes on the edge, or at least beyond our usual experience.

That’s just what Diane Burko delivers.

– Benjamin Genocchio, New York Times

This past year I participated in expeditions to Antarctica and the Arctic Circle. I took thousands of photographs from the air, sea and ground, discovering compelling and seductive beauty everywhere. I intend these latest series to reveal the consequence of record-breaking rapid ice melt at either end of our globe, something frightening and potentially catastrophic. My polar investigations work represents the culmination of years of study and collaboration with glacial geologists throughout the world. The goal is to seduce with the beauty I encounter and at the same time remind the viewer of the fragility of our natural world due to the threats climate change poses for our planet.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS EXHIBITIONGRIDSThe grid is a strategy I find useful in conveying the beauty and fragility of the environment. It is a way to present a collection of like images that, while working singularly as images, become something more when organized into a group.

In the 80x100 inch Antarctic Grid, the 20 images are all from a January 2013 expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula. The subject of each is ice in many forms, taken from many points of view over a two-week period. Each panel represents the fragmentation, breaking up, melting of the largest ice sheet in the world; thus a narrative about the threats of climate change is implied.

That same impulse can be seen in the 40x80 inch grid, Kronebreen Above/Below, from a September 2013 expedition in the Arctic Circle. The aerial images were taken from a helicopter flying over Kronebreen, one of the fastest surging glaciers being studied by international scientists at Ny Alesund (the northern-most research station in the world). Each has its own singular beauty, yet together they embody a concept: Kronebreen is moving into the sea and contributing to sea level rise.

The eight-part 60x120 inch grid, Waters: Glacier and Bucks, again has a conceptual underpinning. This set contrasts Canal October 2011, 2013, archical inkjet print, 30” x 30”

King George Island Fast Ice 2, January 16, 2013, archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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the local and the global. The top row of warm reflections in water are images taken along the Delaware Canal in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where devastating floods have increasingly occurred this past decade. The images below were taken from a flight in 2010 on an exploration of Glacier National Park, Montana. In 1850 there were 150 glaciers, yet now barely 25 remain. This grid format presenting beautiful images of nature implies the impact of how human activity in the past 200 years is threatening its existence into the future.

POLAR INVESTIGATIONS: ARCTIC–SVALBARDIn the fall of 2013 I traveled to Norway to participate in a 27-member artist expedition aboard a 110-foot three-masted Barkentine around Svalbard, sponsored by the The Arctic Circle, an incubator for thoughtand experimentation for artists and innovators. Svalbard is an international archipelago 400 miles north of Norway and 10 degrees south of the North Pole. Before this voyage I joined a scientific expedition in Ny-Alesund, flying over and climbing on the Kronebreen and Kongsvegen glaciers.

POLAR INVESTIGATIONS: ANTARCTICIn January 2013, I participated in an expedition to Antarctica on the Adventurer, a 350-foot ship. We embarked from Ushuaia, then on to South Georgia Island, landing in the old whaling town of Grytviken where the great early 20th century English polar explorer Ernest Shackleton is buried. Most of the images from this location were taken along the Antarctic Peninsula from the ship’s deck and many Zodiac excursions getting as far south as Pleneau Island at the 65th latitude and then back through Drake passage.

ICE AND SNOW: GLACIER NATIONAL PARKAfter working for years with archival visual records on my painting project “Politics of Snow,” in 2011 it was time to fly over and climb on glaciers once more as I had previously done in Iceland and Alaska. Glacier National Park in Montana was the ideal location to capture the drama of the ice before it all melts away.

BENEATH THE SURFACE: YELLOWSTONEMolten lava churns and tectonic plates slowly move into each other causing volcanic activity. Yellowstone, once an ancient caldera, provides symphonies of unimagined color in bubbling mud pools and hot springs where minerals mix with algae and flowing mists of steam swarm, providing unique palettes.

GRASSTraveling through the glades of Florida, miles of prairie are anchored in a unique watershed. Here patterns of color defined by air, light and water are interrupted by sudden appearances of birds, insects and reptiles. Elsewhere other grasses present new choreography to capture.

IMPRINTSFrom high up in the air or only five feet above the ground, looking down provides a world of abstract wonder. Space and distance become ambiguous as I peer out of helicopters and fixed wing planes or step upon granite boulders with ancient glacial markings. Visual complexity greets me in so many places I visit. Wind, rain, humans, animals, as well as the shadows of ridges all make their mark on and in the land.

REFLECTIONSEver since my six-month residence at Giverny in 1989, looking at the surface of water has intrigued me. In the 1990s, I reacted with the language of paint and now through the lens of a camera. Discovering watery reflective worlds is a constant obsession as I walk along the tow path of the Delaware Canal or by the Tohickon and Geddes Run Creek in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. I continually hunt for unique images in my habitual visits to Portland, Oregon, Paris or wherever I find myself near a body of water.

TAPESTRIESThe diverse vegetation of our environment sometimes presents itself as an irregular woven tapestry. I have continually discovered matted and layered vignettes during my last decade of visits to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, as well as to other locations that reveal similar abstractions.

PROCESSDiane Burko’s first suite of images was taken from slides of prior flights seeking landscape imagery. That suite of 9x12 inch Iris prints led to using a Fuji 4 x 5/6 medium format camera and scanning the film to create larger 24x30 inch images. Since 2004, digital SLRs have been her mainstay. She currently uses a Canon EOS 5 Mark II and Mark III, both with a 24-105 lens, as well as a Sony NEX VII. All prints prior to 2010 were printed on German Etching Hahnemuhle. Since 2010 she has used Canson 100% rag. All her archival inkjet prints are produced at Silicon Digital Fine Art Printmaking in Philadelphia, PA.

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Anhinga Trail, 2012, archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

The empirical side of Burko’s sensibility makes her a particularly strong photographer.... [her photographs] are not merely informational. These tightly framed images conjure up

entire landscapes. With fragments, she evokes immensities.

– Carter Ratcliff, art critic

Kronebreen: Above/Below, 2013,archival inkjet print, 40” x 80”

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Kronebreen: Above 1, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Kronebreen: Above 2, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Kronebreen: Above 3, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Kronebreen: Above 4, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Kronebreen: Below 1, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

Kronebreen: Below 4, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Kronebreen: Below 2, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

Kronebreen: Below 3, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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On the Crevasse, 2013,archival inkjet print, 40” x 60”

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Raudfjord Snow I, 2013,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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Raudfjord Snow II, 2013,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

Waters: Glaciers and Bucks, 2013,archival inkjet print, 60” x 120”

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Canal September 2007, 2013,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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Canal November 2007, 2013,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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Canal October 2011, 2013,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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Canal November 2010, 2013,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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Over Montana Glacier National Park 4, 2013,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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Sperry August 2010, 2013,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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Sperry 2, 2013,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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To Grinnell, 2013,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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Paint Pots, 2011,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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Prismatic Spring, June 2, 2011,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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Antarctica Grid, 2013,archival inkjet print, 80” x 100”

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Cobblers Cove January, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Cobblers Cove January 18 2, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Paradise Bay January 18 1, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Paradise Bay January 18 2, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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King George Island Fast Ice A, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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King George Island Fast Ice C, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Paradise Bay January 16 1, 2013, archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Paradise Bay January 18 5, 2013, archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Admiralty Bay January 16 1, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Admiralty Bay January 16 2, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Cobblers Cove January 18 3, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Cobblers Cove January 18 4, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Admiralty Bay January 16 3, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Admiralty Bay January 16 6, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Admiralty Bay January 16 4, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Admiralty Bay January 16 5, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Paradise Bay January 18 3, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Paradise Bay January 18 4, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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King George Island Fast Ice D, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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King George Island Fast Ice B, 2013,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Geddes Run Fall, 2006,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Geddes Run Winter, 2006,archival inkjet print, 20” x 20”

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Everglades, 2012,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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Anhinga Trail, 2012,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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Winter Magnolia, 2007,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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Winter Hemlock, 2007,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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Crevasse Surge 1, 2013, archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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Crevasse Surge 2, 2013, archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

Palami Pali with David Okita 2, 2002,archival inkjet print, 20” x 30”

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Canal Spring 4, 2011,archival inkjet print, 30” x 30”

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BORNBrooklyn, NY, 1945Lives and Works in Philadelphia & Bucks County, PA

EDUCATION1966 Skidmore College, BA—Painting & Art History1969 University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Fine Arts, MFA

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS2014 Diane Burko–Photographs: Investigations of the Environment, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM2013 Diane Burko: Glacial Perspectives, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ2012 Water Matters, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM2011 New Photographs: Water, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Politics of Snow II, Bernstein Gallery–Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, NJ2010 Politics of Snow, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Imprints in the Landscape, Philagrafika –Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA2007 Invitational: Four Alumni, Tang Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY2006 Diane Burko: New Work in Photography, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Flow, Tufts University Art Gallery, Boston, MA, traveled to: James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, PA 2005 Landscapes: Paint/Pixel, Rider University Art Gallery, 2004 Earth Water Fire Ice, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2001 Diane Burko: The Volcano Series, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA1999 A Sense of Place: Paintings by Diane Burko, The Parthenon Museum, Nashville, TN1995-96 Land Survey: 1979-1995–Paintings by Diane Burko, Payne Gallery, Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA Luci ed Ombra di Bellagio–The Light and Shadow of Bellagio, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA1994 Estampes: Works on Paper, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia1992 Diane Burko at Giverny, National Academy of Sciences, Washington D.C.1991 Reflets–Paintings from Giverny, Marian Locks Gallery, Phildelphia, PA1988 Solo, Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (also 1979, 1976)1987 Fifteen Years–1972-1987, Hollins College, Roanoke, VA1983 Waterways of Pennsylvania, traveled to: Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA; Westmoreland County Museum of Art, Westmoreland, PA; Museum of Art, Penn State University, College Park, PA; Reading Pulic Museum, Reading, PA; Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA; Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA1982 Mabel Smith Douglass Library Gallery, Rutgers University, Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series, New Brunswick, NJ Stefanotti Gallery, New York, NY (also 1980)1980 The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Morris Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA1979 First Distinguished Alumni Award Exhibition, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York, NY Genesis Galleries, Ltd., New York, NY1977 Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ1976 Dealer Showcase, O.K. Harris Gallery, New York, NY

SELECTED GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, AWARDS & COMMISSIONSArctic Circle Residency, Fall 2013Rockefeller Residence Fellowship–Bellagio Study and Conference Center, September 1993National Endowment for the Arts Visual Arts Fellowship, 1991-92, 1985-86Residence Fellowship at Giverny, Readers Digest Foundation, April-September 1989Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Individual Artists Grant, 1989, 1981

SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONSHood Museum of Art, Hanover, NHThe Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, ILColgate University, Picker Art Gallery, Hamilton, NYJames A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, PAThe Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PAPew Charitable Trusts, Washington, DCThe Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PAReading Public Museum, Reading, PAWoodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA

DIANE BURKO

Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com

© 2014 LewAllen Contemporary LLC All photos © Diane Burko