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PAINTING THE
CATHEDRAL

Lions Bay artist David Burns finds
endless inspiration in nature.

Written by Kate MacLennan

URBAN WASTELANDS ARE a hit in Canadian art circles these days. If you have a camera, a lick of artistic savvy and an afternoon to spare, aim your lens at a junkyard and you could be papering the walls of a gallery faster than you can say “sizzling social commentary.” Landscape on the other hand, says David Burns, “is not one of the hot subjects to be painting as a contemporary artist.” A west coast landscape artist, Burns should know. He has spent his adult life living in the coastal Lower Mainland, in the last five years capturing it’s topography from Savary Island to Lions Bay, where he is currently based. His current work is the antithesis of a landfill photo essay, the last three collections (From Savary Island, From Bowen Island, and most recently, From Lions Bay) are brooding, honest snapshots of the provincial coastline. To capture the mystical atmosphere, he mixes oils like water colours, building up thin washes to create texture and depth in a subtle way, which gives each piece a Zen-like quality. “It’s always about the light, the way it moves and reflects off the water and the sense of textures between the sky, the water, and the land,” explains Burns.
         Born in Montreal, Burns moved with his family to B.C. when he was young, but returned to his birthplace to attend university at Concordia in its Fine Arts program, “I basically moved straight to a log cabin in Pender Harbour after university, when I was in my twenties, and settled in the bush and painted my heart out,” remembers Burns. “I was painting technological intersection with the landscape. I was interested in how we looked at the landscape as a resource.”
         The young painter found the location was perfect for raising his new family, for focusing and for “being who you are,” but horrible for his career. Consider how few people were using the “world wide web” in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, and the isolation of rural communities gets crystal clear. Nonetheless, he spent 12 years on the Sunshine Coast before returning to an urban existence in 2000. “When I moved into the city what I really missed was sitting on the beach and dreaming into the horizon,” says Burns. In Vancouver, he began immediately to paint a series of extremely minimal seascapes, blue strips of water with massive blue skies. “Just like your lying on the beach and your head is tilted on the side and when you open your eyes all you see is this huge blue. I did tons of those paintings. I really missed that whole sense of peace and space.”
         The call of rural B.C. was relentless. Burns agreed to help a friend build his home on the remote Savary Island, at the north end of the Sunshine Coast, before the summer crowds arrived one year. The time spent on the beautiful island, as well as time spent on Bowen Island was inspiring to Burns. “Eventually I had to be honest with what I was experiencing in terms of what was attracting me subject wise and what wasn’t. Montreal is very contemporary, very avant-guard, although people don’t really use that word anymore. But I found inspiration and magic In the B.C. landscape. It’s got a sense of being in a huge cathedral, and it always stops me in my tracks.”
         It comes as little surprise to discover that among his influences Burns lists Toni Onley, Takao Tanabe and Don Jarvis. These people were working in the 50’s and 60’s, abstract expressionists on the cusp of that which was de rigueur in the art world at the time and artists who found an enduring muse in British Columbia’s geography. Burns doesn’t hesitate in capturing the same subject matter as his mentors, however. “It doesn’t matter what you paint, it’s how you paint it, what you bring to it, and how you see it. Cezanne changed the world of painting with an apple. When I paint these scenes it intensifies the reality for me, how I see it. So when I look out at a sunset as I did last night having painted it so many times, it’s an even more intense experience than it was the night before,” says Burns.
         The collection From Lions Bay has proven to be a slightly different experience for the artist than his previous two exhibitions, specifically because Lions Bay is perched on the side of a mountain, and not surrounded by water on all sides. “You get a real sense of being up against the mountains and of being on the edge of the water, which is very different than the openness of an island. But when you look down the strait between Bowen and Gambier and the sun passes over and the clouds get hooked up on the island, it’s just gorgeous.”
         It’s amusing to discover that Burns has just returned from a “little breather” trip to New York City, ironically one place where he is able to cool his creative jets. Now that he’s back, however, don’t expect he’ll be painting deserted factories or construction sites. He remains anxious to explore further his relationship with the Lions Bay landscape. “The more I do the deeper it opens up for me. It’s endless.”