Hot Shots : Casey Orr
Artist Statement
My work is about journeys, lines, grids, America and my personal narrative, unconscious flows, and how man interacts with nature for the benefit of commerce. I'm often responding to the fact that I no longer live in America. I'm constantly exploring this separation from my own culture, landscape and family. These photographs are from a series called By Water. On July 7th of last year I rode my bicycle from my home in Leeds, England, 127 miles along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, to Liverpool where I boarded The Independent Venture, a container ship. Ten days and 3500 miles later we docked in Chester, Pennsylvania, my birthplace. By Water is a series of photographs about that journey, about how water connects us, how it linked us historically through wool, cotton, tobacco, and slavery and how it links us now through the often invisible movements of goods. The photographs are also about time; killing time and wasting time. The three I've sent you are of fishermen along this journey, all waiting for a bite.
Biography
Originally from Pennsylvania, I’ve lived in England for 16 years where I work as a photographer. I am also a Phd researcher and Senior Lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University. My work is supported by Arts Council England and has been shown most recently at the University of The Arts, Philadelphia, Pa., The Brighton Photo Biennale Fringe Festival and on the walls of HM Prison, Leeds in 2009, the first time the walls of a prison have been used as a space for art.
My work focuses on our relationship to nature, the land we inhabit and what both nature and land mean to our families, communities and selves.