June 2025 / Erin Elyse Burns

In the Back Space /

tending the bloodline by Erin Elyse Burns

June 05 - July 06, 2025

Opening Reception, Thursday, June 05, 5-8pm
Closing Reception, Thursday, July 06, 5-8pm

Spring Gallery Hours:
Friday–Sunday, 12–5pm

Tending the Bloodline is the second solo exhibition presented in the Backspace Gallery by SOIL member Erin Elyse Burns. This show is part of an ongoing exploration of lineage —  both imagined and archival —  that engages with the question, how do we heal the wounds of our ancestors? 

Through new works of sound and image, Burns builds upon information she uncovered while doing sabbatical research in the National Archives of Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and England. This material situates the paternal side of her family within the context of the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. Time spent in National Archives introduces complex inquiry into the gatekeeping of information, how conflict is communicated across opposing nation states, and the particular barriers and apparatuses required to safely handle historical objects. Tending the Bloodline finds its heartbeat in primary source material that the artist abstracts through strategic omission. 

Collaborating with people she met while working abroad, Burns is grateful to those who voiced her grandfather’s prison internment file. Thank you to Jonny Grogan, Aileen McErlean, Frank McHugh, and Dessie McKenzie for bringing the language of his detainment to life. Thank you to Cornish College of the Arts for their support.

Artist Biography

Erin Elyse Burns is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice navigates territory within the disciplines of photography, video, and performance art. Burns often casts herself as a subject in her work in order to create experiences that evoke a sense of the picturesque, the vulnerable, and the absurd. Preoccupied with being both the seer and being seen, she explores this dual position of power that allows for a dichotomy of distanced scrutiny and inherent intimacy. Concepts of private ritual, loss, identity, and the ephemeral persist within her work.

Burns has exhibited at the Tucson Museum of Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Henry Art Gallery, and the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno. Recent solo exhibitions include Eastern Washington University in Spokane and Gallery 4Culture in Seattle, WA. Recent group showings include the Behnke Gallery in Seattle, WA, Carnation Contemporary in Portland, Oregon, and Tlaxcala3 in Mexico City. Recent artist residencies include Two Dot Schoolhouse Studios in Montana, Vermont Studio Center, and the Westfjords Residency in northern Iceland. Burns has received grants from 4Culture, the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, The New Foundation Seattle, and was a Fulbright Arts Finalist. She is an Associate Professor in the Art Department at Cornish College of the Arts.

@erinelyseburns