Artist's Statement
Len has been taking photographs for more than 40 years. A native of Detroit, Michigan, he has lived in Montreal, Quebec and now resides in Ottawa, Ontario.
Len graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in sculpture. Putting sculpture on hold, he moved to photography, to the human form. Traveling through 17 countries in Europe, taking thousands of photographs, Len's eye was always drawn to the human condition, form, and movement, and the secret story that was evident but silent.
Continued travels through Mexico, Cuba, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, and Morocco has given len the gift of photographing a fraction of a second in the lives of countless people, a fraction of a second of their stories as only a photograph can do.
In the local environment, Len has moved to capture people in motion - dancers, athletes, circus performers and others engaged in dynamic movement where speed and grace are transformed into forms where limbs disappear, and the human form comes from another realm, more phantom-like, abstract, and distorted.
Len's work is shown at galleries in Ottawa and the United States. His work is held in numerous private and public collections in Canada, the United States, Europe, and the Consulate of Mexico in Montreal, Quebec. He has been invited as the photographer to join an aid delegation to El Salvador. Rights for use in academic lectures and book publication of photographs from Morocco have also been purchased. The Cuban Ambassador to Canada has invited Len to exhibit his images of Cuba in Havana in 2010.
Len can be contacted at lenburnstein@sympatico.ca or (613) 859-9900 (cell).
All photographs are digital, printed with archival inks on museum quality papers with acid free matting.