Annette LeMay Burke is a photographic artist and Northern California native who lives in the heart of Silicon Valley. Numerous family road trips throughout California and the West have honed her eye for observing the landscape. She took her first darkroom class while earning a BA in Earth Science from the University of California at Berkeley. Her photographic practice now focuses on how we interact with the natural world, the landscapes constructed by the artifacts of technology, and the more intangible artifacts that are created throughout our lives.
In her project Fauxliage, the odd juxtaposition of disguised cell phone towers in the landscape explores how technology and our built environments are encroaching on nature. The tower camouflages also cloak the cellular equipment’s covert capability to collect valuable personal data. A monograph of her Fauxliage images will be published by Daylight Books in the spring on 2021.
In her project Character Building, the intangible artifacts are the memories left behind in her family’s home of sixty years. After her parents’ deaths, she projected vernacular family photos onto the surfaces of their home to unearth those engrained memories. This project is her fond farewell to her childhood home and the foundation that her parents provided.
Her work has been exhibited in the US and internationally at institutions such as Academy of Art Museum, Center for Photographic Art, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Griffin Museum of Photography, Texas Photographic Society, The Center for Fine Art Photography, SE Center for Photography, Photographic Center Northwest, and FotoNostrum Gallery in Barcelona, Spain. In 2017, she was a finalist for Photolucida’s Critical Mass. In 2020 she was a finalist for the UK’s AOP Open Award Series, and received an honorable mention for the 15th Pollux Award Open Series.
Annette is also a founding member of Maverick Photographers, a collective of diverse photographers working in the Bay Area.
Contact: annette@atelierlemay.com