Erin Elyse Burns’s interdisciplinary art practice navigates territory within the disciplines of photography, video, installation, the performative gesture, and artifact. Her work is often influenced by an attraction to overwhelming landscapes. She casts herself as a figure within these environments in order to create experiences that evoke a sense of the picturesque, the vulnerable, and the absurd. Preoccupied with being both the seer and being seen, Burns explores this dual position of power that allows for a dichotomy of distanced scrutiny and inherent intimacy. Concepts of private ritual, identity, physicality, and the ephemeral persistently fascinate her. Her work has been exhibited at the Tucson Museum of Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA, and the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno as well as in numerous group and solo exhibitions. Recent showings include a collaborative solo exhibition presented by Lilla Galleriet in Gerlesborg, Sweden, an installation created for Seattle’s Photographic Center Northwest Notions of Home exhibition, publication in the latest issue of the photographic journal Latitude 47, Border Patrol Gallery’s exhibition of her work in Portland, Maine and its presentation at the New England Art Book Fair and the Boston Art Book Fair. Recent artist residencies include the Vermont Studio Center and the Westfjords Residency in northern Iceland. Burns has received grants from the Office of Arts & Culture, Seattle, The New Foundation Seattle, and was a 2016 Fulbright Arts Finalist. She completed her BFA at the University of Nevada, Reno, and her MFA at the University of Washington’s Photomedia program. She is based in Seattle, WA where she is Visual Arts Foundations Studio Faculty at Cornish College of the Arts.

New Media Gallery 2018-19: To Take the Shape of the Container

Exhibits

Sound Clips

Education Projects