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As a student of Jerry McMillan at Cal State Northridge in the early seventies, Gary Burns developed a healthy disrespect for traditional photographic techniques and materials. “I loved the antithetical relationship that was established by using coarse construction materials with a photo process,” Burns says. He began by making silk-screen prints on paper printed with cement, rather than inks. By 1974 he had perfected a molding process that allowed him to turn a photograph into a cast cement sculpture—thus satisfying the urge to bring the photograph one step closer to a facsimile of its subject.