A Terrible Beauty: Edward Burtynsky in Dialogue with Emily Carr

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Edward Burtynsky, "Mount Edziza Provincial Park #4," 2012

Edward Burtynsky, "Mount Edziza Provincial Park #4," Northern British Columbia, Canada, 2012, chromogenic print, Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Gift of the Artist,© Edward Burtynsky, Courtesy Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto / Paul Kuhn Gallery, Calgary

September 4 - November 21

Join us at the Nanaimo Museum for the opening reception on Thursday, September 3, 5 to 7 pm

Nanaimo Art Gallery has partnered with Nanaimo Museum to present A Terrible Beauty: Edward Burtynsky in Dialogue with Emily Carr. The exhibition is organized and circulated by the Vancouver Art Gallery with the generous support of the Killy Foundation.

Toronto-based photographer Edward Burtynsky is internationally renowned for his captivating images of natural and man-made landscapes that reflect both the impressive reach of human enterprise and the extraordinary impact of our hubris. This exhibition presents a selection of photographs Burtynsky produced between 1983 and 2013 that together represent all his major bodies of work, from his early series of homestead photographs shot in British Columbia in the early 1980s, to his new, groundbreaking project that explores water's fundamental place in the world ecology.

Burtynsky's work is presented in dialogue with a selection of paintings and drawings by Emily Carr, one of Canada's best known artists. Carr was painting in British Columbia in the early twentieth century, a time when industrialized agriculture, resource extraction and practices such as large-scale logging were on the rise. Though working in different media and over fifty years apart, both artists sought to record the changing landscape and our place in it.

"A Terrible Beauty will resonate with audiences on Vancouver Island, because of the international profile of the artists involved, and also because of the theme's relevance to our context," says Julie Bevan, Executive Director at Nanaimo Art Gallery. "It's our hope that the presentation of this important exhibition in Nanaimo, paired with Gallery's fall project Silva, which explores our connection to the forest, will contribute in a meaningful way to conversations around our complex relationship with the land."

"We believe this is the first time Emily Carr paintings will be on public exhibit in Nanaimo," says Debbie Trueman, General Manager at the Nanaimo Museum. "These amazing Burtynsky and Carr works are being displayed in our community because of a strong partnership between the Nanaimo Museum and Nanaimo Art Gallery."

The Nanaimo Museum is located in the Vancouver Island Conference Centre and is open Monday to Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm. Contact the museum at 250 753-1821 or visit www.nanaimomuseum.ca