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Isla Burns was raised in Edinburgh Scotland. She majored in sculpture at the Alberta College of Art and Design and completed her graduate degree at the University of Alberta. Burns has been devoted to developing her craftsmanship for over 25 years and has greatly influenced the flourishing of Edmonton steel sculpture.
Burns habitually works with found metal forms such as: pipes, bars, angles, tools, old musical instruments and patterned plates with raised textures. Her built sculptures expose a strong profile along with a carved sense of mass. Burns' work combines a powerful contradiction of ideas: decorative surfaces with ornamentation against the cold surface of grey steel. The curves in her work are sensual and provide a visual contrast with the angular 'found' metal forms. Burns' work brings a particularly female sensibility to a medium that has mostly masculine attributes.
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