Exploring the intersection of the built and natural world
Annette LeMay Burke is a photographic artist and Northern California native who lives in the heart of Silicon Valley. A longtime observer of the evolution of the western landscape, Burke’s work is about connection to the land. She is interested in how our environment changes over time and the telltale artifacts — both tangible and temporal — that are left behind. She explores metaphorical clues in the landscape as well as her personal connections to the west. She also examines how technology links us to each other via its idiosyncratic presence in the landscape. Burke received a BA in Geology from the University of California at Berkeley. After a decade long career in high-tech, she now focuses on her artistic practice.
In 2023, Burke's images were selected for Earth Photo and displayed at London's Royal Geographical Society, five Forestry England sites and the Lishui International Photography Festival in China. Her work was chosen for the 2022 Critical Mass Top 50 and the LensCulture Critics' Choice 22. In 2021, she was awarded first place in the LENSCRATCH Vernacular Photography Exhibition, won the Imago Lisboa Photography Festival in Portugal, and was a semi-finalist for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s The Outwin 2022: American Portraiture Today in Washington DC.
Burke’s work is exhibited widely throughout the US and internationally at institutions such as Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Candela Gallery in Virginia, Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts, Los Angeles Center for Photography, Oceanside Museum of Art in California, HELLERAU European Centre for the Arts in Dresden, Germany, and Association of Photographers in London.
Her images have been featured in The New York Times, L.A. Times, The London Times, Hyperallergic, Sierra Club Magazine, Newsweek Japan, Elle Decor Italy, Fraction, All About Photo, KATALOG, Dezeen, EXIT Image and Culture, The Riv Magazine and the Daily Mail. Her work is held in public and private collections including the Wieland Collection in Atlanta and the Colorado Photographic Art Center in Denver.
Burke’s monograph, Fauxliage: Disguised Cell Phone Towers of the American West, was published by Daylight Books in 2021. Ann M. Jastrab, Executive Director of the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, California, contributed the forward.
Burke is one of eleven female photographers who created the Memory is a Verb: Exploring Time and Transience traveling exhibition. Represented in this body of work are the universal concepts of loss, mortality, and legacy, and the exploration of what inspires us to seek solace and reexamine our histories. The exhibition will be shown in four US galleries and museums in 2023. She is also a founding member of Maverick Photographers, a collective of diverse photographers working in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Contact: annette@atelierlemay.com