Biography

Ian Burns was born in 1964 in Australia and lives and works in New York, US.  His works reimagine the consumer technologies that now define many human activities. He is known for witty assemblages often animated by light and movement. The artist’s work encourages a playful spirit of investigation and promotes an active viewing position challenging passive mode of consumption.

“Like the eighteenth-century philosophers Rousseau and Burke, I see curiosity as the first of all passions. I believe that by provoking the investigative impulse in the viewer there is scope to challenge their expectations and self-awareness.”

Public collections that show his work include: Art Gallery of South Astralia, Australian Center for the Moving Image, National Gallery of Victoria, Museum für Moderne Kunst (Frankfurt) and prominent private and corporate collections across Australia and the United States.