Christine Carr: States Project: Iowa

Christine Carr: States Project: Iowa by Jeff RichOctober 2, 2015

©Christine Carr

I’ve been familiar with Christine Carr‘s work since it was featured in the Flak Photo exhibition Looking at the Land. I first met Christine shortly after she moved to Iowa to start teaching at Iowa State University. I was glad to have another photographer nearby who had such a strong interest in the landscape. I’ve always loved the haunting light and color in her photographs. Her Monolith series featured below is a great example of the atmosphere she can create through long exposures and framing.

Hailing from Portsmouth, Virginia, Christine Carr received her MFA from the Tyler School of Art, her BFA from the Corcoran College of Art and Design and her AAS from the Tidewater Community College Visual Arts Center. She is a two-time recipient of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship. Her work is included in the 5th edition of Exploring Color Photography, the 3rd edition of Photographic Possibilities and the 2nd edition of Light and Lens, all by Robert Hirsch. She has exhibited in solo shows in Washington, DC, Richmond, VA and Roanoke, VA, and in numerous group shows throughout the eastern United States. Much of her work explores the mood derived from spatial, light, and color relationships in the industrial and urban landscape. Carr has participated in residencies at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts and the Prairie Center of the Arts. She is currently teaching photography at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.

Monolith

With this series, I am transforming contemporary buildings into fantastical power structures. I omit the horizon line and many details to obscure scale and use available light from a particular time of day to heighten mystery. I am drawn to facades that are nondescript, light in tone and have very few or no windows. The removal of context helps me to imagine what the buildings may be instead of being mired in what they are.

I am fascinated by the transformed structures, yet unsettled by the uncertainty of what occurs behind the blank walls. I am drawn to the sense of power that these emit and through them I feel a connection to ancient monuments that were important to ritual and memorialization.