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    Picturing The Parks

    Mark Burns' amazing journey to photograph every national park in the U.S.

    Tarra Gaines
    Jul 27, 2016 | 11:00 am

    When photographer Mark Burns was growing up in Houston, he didn’t have many everyday opportunities to gaze upon great mountains and sweeping vistas, but that changed when his family went on vacations. In those family car trips to west Texas and Big Bend and then onto New Mexico or up into Colorado, Burns first began to understand the magnificence of this country’s vast landscapes.

     

    Now years later, that appreciation found its ultimate expression in his photographic exhibition The National Parks Photography Project, on view at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

     

    I recently had a chance to speak with Burns about the exhibition and what set him off on this monumental quest to capture one defining image from each of the 59 U.S. national parks. The project began over five years ago after he created and produced the exhibit The Culture of Wine for the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, when Jean Becker, Bush’s chief of staff, asked if he had ideas for another exhibition.

     

    Even back in 2010, Burns was already thinking about a photographic way to commemorate the National Parks Service centennial anniversary in 2016. After an advisory committee was brought together and a “collaboration” with the Parks Service was made, Burns set off on his journey that would take him to every national park.

     

     The Wild Trek

     

    Though he began relatively close to home in the southwest, Burns eventually drove to all of the national parks in the lower 48 states in his Toyota FJ Cruiser, racking up about a 160,000 miles during his five-year odyssey. When driving wasn't an option, he left the Cruiser at home and flew to Hawaii, Alaska and America Samoa to complete the list.

     

    “The third and fourth years I was really all over the place, traveling extensively,” Burns explained, describing his route that would take him nine or ten thousand miles in one trip. “Some of the trips that I did took me from Houston through New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, over to Montana and then back down through Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico to Houston.”

     

    Many of the the parks he visited multiple times “chasing weather and also trying to be there during different seasons,” he said.

     

    From the onset, Burns knew that he wanted to take black-and-white photos of the parks because he loves working in black and white for artistic reasons, but he also felt it the best type of photography that would link the parks in the 21st century back to the previous hundred years.

     

    “Right from the beginning I made that connection in my mind that it would be a neat bridge to have people looking at photographs that would have a contemporary date, but they would be in black and white, and that would look similar to those [photos] of the 1910s, '20s and '30s,” Burns explained.

     

     The Land and Sea Alone

     

    Looking at this vast expanses frozen in time on paper, visitors to the exhibition might also notice that there are no people amid the mountains, rivers, glaciers, beaches and cliffs, as Burns made a decision early on not to include the “human element.” He did include a few human-made structures, like Proenneke’s Cabin in Lake Clark National Park Alaska, and the lighthouse at Biscayne National Park, but only if they were an important element of the landscape or represented the character of the park.

     

    Burns also made a distinction between landscape and wildlife photography. The few animals captured in some of the photos, like brown bears in the Katmai National Park photo, are such a part of the topography of those parks that he felt they had to be included.

     

    Burns also created a balance in the exhibition between iconic images probably known to most Americans and those places of wilderness yet to be overwhelmed by the vacationing crowds. For example, while he captured beautiful pictures of the Yellowstone River, he realized after he kept hearing “Where’s Old Faithful?” he knew his photo of the famous geyser would have to go in the exhibition.

     

    Yet when I asked Burns if there was an underappreciated park he grew to admire, he became practically poetic in his descriptions of Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California, a park he had originally just wanted to check off his list but found himself revisiting several times just to see the change of seasons.

     

     Texas Beginnings

     

    While the The National Parks Photography Project might have officially began five years ago, it became apparent while talking to Burns that this was a journey that truly began with those family trips of his childhood.

     

    “My dad would take my brother and I. For a period of about six or seven years we would go to into southwestern Colorado and New Mexico. That’s were I cut my teeth in landscape photography,” Burns said telling the tales of his first attempts at photographing the southwest. Instead of the usually whines of a kid asking if they were there yet, he would ask his dad to stop along the road so he could get a picture of some image that had caught his young photographer’s eye.

     

    “We went to Big Bend some and I certainly enjoyed going out to west Texas and Big Bend because it was such a different environment from Houston. My eye started to see landscapes probably in that Big Bend area.”

     

    Now Texans can take their own journey into the wilds of all our national parks with just a few steps into the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

     

     The National Parks Photography Project is on display until September 28 at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

    Mark Burns at the Grand Canyon.

    Mark Burns at Grand Canyon
      
    Photo by Craig Robbins
    Mark Burns at the Grand Canyon.
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    Best July Art

    Where to see art in Houston now: 9 fun new exhibits opening in July

    Tarra Gaines
    Jul 9, 2025 | 4:30 pm
    ​Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"
    Photo courtesy of Artechouse
    Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"

    Art blooms in our world class museums but also on our city streets this July. From exhibitions featuring traditional paintings and sculptures to high tech immersive and interactive shows, we’re weaving art into the best of summertime fun and dreaming up beautiful new artistic creations all over Houston.

    “Town Meeting 1978-2028” at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    Pioneering Houston-based interdisciplinary artists Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin continue their decades-long project to create new and sometimes monumental artworks in response to little-known pre-Stonewall queer histories. For this latest exhibition, the duo explore a more recent and influential piece of Houston history, “Town Meeting I,” the pivotal convening of 4,000 LGBTQIA+ Houstonians at the Astro Arena in 1978. For this show at Art League, they’ve used their “wind drawing” technique of stenciling unfixed charcoal powder on paper and blowing it away, leaving a ghost-image. Using archival images of “Town Meeting I” as the bases of their stenciling, the finished “wind drawings” highlight the ephemerality, beauty, and loss of queer histories. In addition to these new works, Vaughan and Margolin hope to inspire, facilitate, and develop programming in 2028 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of “Town Meeting 1.”

    “Fragmentos de un sueño que yo también soñé (Fragments of a Dream I Also Dreamed)" at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    “Every house is a body, and every individual body is a house full of memories and hopes,” says award-winning Venezuela born, Chicago-based artist, Jeffly Gabriela Molina, of her artistic focus. Molina’s fragmented, layered, and figural compositions explore that idea of home and memories. Delving into memories and stories, these figurative compositions, depicting people and relationships, fluctuate between stories of the present, past, and future. Taken together, the works in “Fragmentos de un sueño” aim to visually capture the feelings of vulnerability, nostalgia, and hope embedded in the experience of many immigrants. Art League notes that Molina’s pieces emphasize optimism over hardship, specifically addressing the longing for a home that no longer exists while striving to create a new one.

    “Every Fiber of Their Bodies” at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    Working with natural fibers such as linen, paper collage, and hand-spun paper yarn made from calligraphy paper and book pages, textile artist Lin Qiqing weaves stories ofhuman relationships, gender, immigration, and language. As the title hints, the labor-intensive weaving process brings thematic depth to the images of bodies depicted in the pieces. The woven pieces also make connections to the natural world, as when Lin crumples then smooths handmade mulberry paper to resemble human skin, or when she uses handwoven fiber to mimic the body’s movement. Lin process includes research and experimenting with natural materials to explore themes of the internal human struggle for existence and our interactions with the world around us.

    “Annual Juried Exhibition” at Archway Gallery (now through July 31)
    For the 17th year, the artist owned Archway Gallery celebrates Houston artists with its juried exhibition of area artists who are not members of the space. This year’s exhibition is juried by Project Row Houses founder and MacArthur "genius" fellow, Rick Lowe. The acclaimed artist and social activist has selected work from over 35 area artists representing a diversity of medium and styles. Sales from the exhibition will go to Houston’s Brave Little Company, the theater company for Houston’s kids and their gown ups.

    “Foyer Installation: René Magritte” at Menil Collection (now through August 3)
    After a critically acclaimed trip to Australia, some of our favorite Belgian-born Houstonians are back home. Yes, the Magritte paintings have returned to the Menil Collection after taking a star turn in a monumental Magritte retrospective at Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales. Now the Menil is celebrating their return with a special installation in the main building foyer. The Menil Collection owns the largest collection of work by René Magritte outside the artist’s native Belgium, and this display focuses on a core group of paintings from the 1950s and ’60s that truly represent Magritte’s status as a master creator of impossible painted worlds and an icon of the Surrealist movement. The paintings were purchased within a couple years of their making by the museum’s founders, John and Dominique de Menil. They represent and important part of 20th century art history, as the de Menils became Magritte’s biggest champions in the United States, helping to shape the artist’s reception and reputation in the postwar American art world. Stop by to welcome them home and slip into their enigmatic wonder.

    “Blooming Wonders” at Artechouse (now through September)
    The latest immersive exhibition from the Houston venue that brings art, science, and technology home together, Artechouse, lets the flowers blossom. The exhibition contains several dynamic installations, including “Timeless Butterflies,” a 270 degrees projection space that puts visitors in the middle of a butterfly cloud. Audiences journey with a flock of butterflies into an immense garden of flowers. Another immersive piece, “Infinite Blooms” takes audiences on a journey through an endless digital forest of cherry blossoms. The installation, “Akousmaflore et Lux” creates a very different type of garden where plants transform into musical instruments. “Clay Pillar” by Interactive Items / Vadim Mirgorodskii invites visitors to sculpt new forms using clay and a little help from an AI program. Note that “Blooming Wonders” runs simultaneously with the rock ‘n’ roll exhibition, “Amplified” with “Wonders” open during the daytime.

    “Weci | Koninut” at Avenida Houston (now through September 1)
    Houston is a place for big dreams, and this wondrous outdoor exhibition near George R. Brown Convention Center gives us the space to do so. Created by First Nations artists Julie-Christina Picher and Dave Jenniss, this interactive installation weaves together visual arts, Indigenous storytelling and sensory technologies in the form of six immense sculptural dreamcatchers. Each of these dreamcatchers are unique and represent one of the six seasons from the Atikamekw culture, an Indigenous people in Canada. Activated by people passing by, the dreamcatchers come to life with lights, sounds, and story, making the whole installation truly interactive. “Weci | Koninut” creators say that they want the installation to offer a total immersion experience for visitors, to create a moment where nature and dreams converge. Each piece offers a place for the public to slow down, sit, reflect, and yes, dream.

    New Murals in the East End and Midtown (ongoing)
    We could spend days viewing all the new murals painted across town, just in the last few years. But in honor of summer outdoor art viewing, we thought we’d spotlight two noteworthy new additions to our city-wide gallery of murals. As part of his major exhibition last spring at the CAMH, Vincent Valdez worked with San Antonio muralist Rubio and local students to create “Memoria, Memory.” Dedicated to his mother Theresa Santana Valdez (1947–2020), the vivid mural on historic Navigation Boulevard features her favorite bird and flower. Over in Midtown, check out “Stellar Illumination,” the latest installation in the city’s Big Walls Big Dreams mural series. Created by Robin Munro, also known as Dread, the seven stories high “Illumination” depicts a celestial scene of an astronaut gazing at Earth from space.

    “The Weight of Place” at Anya Tish Gallery (July 11-August 23)
    This group exhibition will explore themes of memory and the emotional, psychological, and physical landscapes memories can evoke. The will showcase three contemporary Texas-based female artists: Megan Harrison, Marisol Valencia, and Lillian Warren. While these artists work in different mediums–including large-scale paintings, mixed media works, and elegant porcelain sculptures–they are inspired by personal reflection and nature to create artworks that reflect on the ways we hold onto the past through sensory experience.

    “In Residence: 18th Edition” at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (July 12-June 27, 2026)
    This annual exhibition celebrating the Center’s Artist Residency Program reaches it’s big 18th anniversary. Over the many years, the residency program has supported so many emerging, mid-career, and established artists working in all craft media. The program gives them a space for creative exploration, exchange, and collaboration with other artists, arts professionals, and the public. Now arts and craft lovers will get a chance to see the culmination of that work with this exhibition featuring pieces in fiber, clay, copper, and found objects by 2024-2025 resident artists Prerata Bradley, Stephanie Bursese, Atisha Fordyce, Nela Garzón, Gbenga Komolafe, Gabo Martinez, Preetika Rajgariah, Macon Reed, Jamie Sterling Pitt, Adam Whitney, and Dongyi Wu.

    “My Texas” at Our Texas Cultural Center (July 27-August 22)
    Award winning, Russian-born photographer, Anatoliy Kosterev, chronicles his personal exploration of Texas with photographs he took around the Lone Star State. The photos offer extraordinary views of Texas, from our dynamic cities to dramatic and sometimes lonesome landscapes. Kosterev’s photographic style blends science and technology with an artistic eye. He puts those two perspectives into practice when documenting all facets of life in Texas. Using HDR, drone imaging, macro photography, and traditional camera methods, he captures a diversity of subjects from quiet human moments to vast landscapes to delicate close-ups of insects and flowers.

    \u200bArtechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"
      

    Photo courtesy of Artechouse

    Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds."

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