Parcourez la nécrologie de Isla Rosemary Burns 2024 résidant dans la province Alberta pour le détail des funérailles.
Isla Burns Obituary
Canada has lost one of its great abstract sculptors, with the passing of Isla Burns at 72. Her legacy forged in Alberta will survive through her work in collections across Canada and around the world, and her ideals and tenacity for art will endure through the many students she nurtured and supported over three decades.
Isla Rosemary Burns died on September 25, 2024, at St. Mary’s Hospital in Camrose, Alberta, after a prolonged illness.
Isla was born in 1952 in Calcutta. Her mother, Patricia (Paddy) Burns, was a Mitchel from Wales and practiced as a GP. Isla’s father, Ronald (Bobby) Burns, was a senior accountant for the Imperial Tobacco Company in India, moving the family from Calcutta to Mumbai (then called Bombay), Monghyr, Saharanpur and Gauhati, during Isla’s early formative years.
The prevalence of generations of art – public works in pottery, painting and sculpture in India – would later emerge in reverent forms in much of Isla’s work, from small abstract figurines evoking deities, to the large, well-known four-ton stainless steel sculpture “Caraval,” commissioned by the City of Edmonton outside the north entrance of City Hall.
After her family returned to the U.K., Isla continued school in St. Margaret’s Convent in Edinburgh, Scotland, where, in 1968-69, she took night classes at the Edinburgh College of Art. A Catholic upbringing had an indelible influence, expressed in both veneration and defiance in later work.
Paddy brought her daughters, Isla and Patricia to Canada in 1970, where Paddy specialization in radiation oncology at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton. Isla’s brother, Ian, did not come with them but later visited.
Isla studied at the Alberta College of Art (ACA) in Calgary, focusing on figurative sculpture at first, then abstract sculpture. Seeking to improve her ability to work in steel, Isla took an apprentice welding course at SAIT – one of the first women to enroll in the welding program – while still enrolled at ACA. This period solidified her connection to steel sculpture, as well as to the burgeoning oil industry in Alberta, desperate for welders and a plentiful source of cast-off steel, perfect for Isla’s talent for combining delicate forms that reveal strength and disguised mass.
In 1975, Isla was accepted to pursue her Master of Fine Art at the University of Alberta’s renown sculpture program, where she graduated in 1978 with a Beta Sigma Phi Award in Art and Design.
Although sculpture was her passion, Isla took welding jobs with a goal to make money for steel, studio space and her own equipment. She worked outside of Vancouver, helping build freight carriers for Boeing, as their first female welder. She was so proficient, she was soon teaching others riveting techniques. Next, she moved to Saskatoon to repair equipment for the oil industry. With lower costs, she established a studio and was soon showing. One of her first major sales was to the City of Saskatoon’s public gallery, now known as the Remai Modern art museum.
Isla’s prominence as a new sculptor earned her an apprenticeship working for Sir Anthony Caro in England, who was called Britain’s greatest sculptor of his generation, and himself an apprentice of ground-breaking sculptors Henry Moore from Britain and American David Smith. Isla would later work with Caro several times, most importantly in 1989 at a steel sculpture workshop at the University of Alberta and bronze casting workshop at Red Deer College, alongside Alberta artist Roydon Mills.
In 1983, Isla returned to Edmonton to begin mentoring hundreds of new artists at the University of Alberta, where she taught for three decades, first at the Edmonton Campus and later the Augustana Campus in Camrose. She had said that she learned as much, if not more, from some of her students and was grateful for the opportunity to explore form and composition with new perspectives.
In 1995, Isla married painter Phil Darrah who was also teaching in the Fine Arts Program at the U of A. In 1998, Isla and Phil moved from Edmonton to the Pigeon Lake area, where they established two studios and their home in a large former hardware store in Mulhurst.
The long drives across Alberta and then home on an acreage greatly influenced Isla’s work, with landscape abstractions and flora depictions, from fragile petals to windswept Prairie tree breaks being evoked in brushed steel, warmed with graphite-gun oil patinas. The strength of metal is always apparent, and the nature of the found object is often retained, but the sheer mass is always balanced with gentle curves or intricate ornamentation. Her sculptures can be sensual and cold or playful and tough, and always provocative.
Her work at Edmonton City Hall commissioned in 1991 is one of few public works displayed outside. Her sculptures are in hundreds of indoor collections and has been shown in well over 30 exhibitions, across Canada in Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto, Sault Saint Marie and Ottawa, and globally in U.K., U.S., Spain and Greece. Her work is in private collections from Australia to United Arab Emirates.
Isla had been presented the Award for Excellence from the Alberta College of Art and Design, Edmonton’s Cultural Hall of Fame, and was accepted to the Royal Canadian Academy of Art (RCA). Isla’s work is currently represented by the Peter Robertson Gallery in Edmonton and the Wallace Galleries in Calgary.
Isla was preceded in death by her sister Patricia in 2023, and her mother and father. Isla is lovingly remembered by her husband Phil, her niece Sara Burns, and stepsons Ben and Jason. She is survived by her great niece Inara and two great nephews, Logan and Griffin. Isla remains an inspiration and force for art to many contemporary artists in Alberta and students who were fortunate to share studio time with her.
A celebration of her life will be held in Edmonton in the coming months. In lieu of flowers, funding to visual arts would be welcomed, such as supporting an up-and-coming artist, donating to a public art gallery or public arts foundation.
To plant a beautiful memorial tree in memory of Isla Rosemary Burns, please visit our Tree Store.
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2024
Nos plus sincères sympathies à la famille et aux amis de Isla Rosemary Burns 2024..
Décès pour la Ville: CAMROSE, Province: Alberta
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