by
Mel Fenson
The West:
Where
endless blue, cloud-laden skies keep watch over the rolling grasslands, canyon
lands and mountains in northern Colorado and South Dakota.
Maureen Ruddy Burkhart's photographs have captured special moments in these landscapes, when a windmill, a buffalo herd, a deserted shack, cattle on the range, or a train passing on the horizon have caught her attention.
While the “Wild West” may have been won, vast serene, wind-swept, western panoramas, indifferent to time, still exist, as documented by these images.
In her early years, Maureen worked only in black and white, then moved on, “to the monumental learning curve of digital color photography.”
In her work she notes, "I am constantly aware of the mystery and dreamlike dimensions of distant horizons, light and shadows dancing upon great expanses, and man’s occasional stamp on the land."
She observes that, “while the lens restricts, the imagination does not,” and she likes to think of her vision, “as a dance between the two.”
Maureen earned a BFA in Photography at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1976 and a BS in Arts & Media from Grand Valley State in Michigan in 1980. Her career has ranged from writing and directing for U.S. Navy training videos to child and family portraiture, stock photography, and fine art pursuits, and her portfolio reflects her extensive travel photography.
Maureen's work has been exhibited nationally. Most recently, her work was shown in New York’s Asia Society Museum's 2007 “Glass, Gilding, and Grand Design: Art of Sasanian Iran” exhibit. She was invited to exhibit in the 2007 “Environmental Photography Invitational” show at Art Wolfe’s Gallery in Seattle, Washington, and her work was selected to be part of the Dairy Center for the Arts’ “American Landscape” exhibit in Boulder. She received the Judge’s Award for “Seamus and Daisy - an Irish Peat Farmer and His Dog” at the 2005 Louisville (Colorado) Art Association’s annual juried photography show. Her work was exhibited at PhotoArts SantaFe in 2007. Maureen’s image “Chi,” an architectural photograph of the Grand Staircase at the Vatican Visitor’s Center in Rome, was the 2007 Grand Prize winner of Popular Photography Magazine’s Annual Readers’ Competition. She was also recognized by the 2007 International Photography Awards' competition for that photograph, in its architectural category.
For
more information,
visit
Maureen's website at:
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