Eleanor Owen Kerr
Eleanor Owen Kerr lives in mid-coast Maine and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In 2005, she earned a Professional Certificate from Maine Media Workshops and apprenticed for several years thereafter with Paul Caponigro.
Kerr’s photographs are in the permanent collections of the U.S. State Department, ART in Embassies and the LSU Museum of Art, as well as numerous corporate and private collections. Her work is featured regularly at juried exhibitions around the country. She has received awards from groups such as the International Photography Awards, Prix de la Photographie de Paris, Black and White Spider Awards, and Women in Photography International. Kerr’s work has been published by SHOTS Journal of Photography, The Photo Review, Photographer’s Forum, and Silvershotz International Journal of Fine Art Photography; recently, her “On the Batture” project was featured in Lenscratch (January 2019). She is represented by Carol Robinson Gallery in New Orleans, Baton Rouge Gallery and Ann Connelly Fine Art in Baton Rouge, and Photography West Gallery in Carmel, California. Kerr uses large format cameras and makes film-based, silver gelatin prints in a traditional wet darkroom.
As the artist describes her work
“My art arises from a childhood in South Louisiana, absorbing the relentless press of nature, which is inescapable there. Interested in images that blur the line between what is there and what else may be there, I am drawn to moments where the layers obscuring nature’s mysteries are slightly permeable, hinting at questions as well as answers.
On the Batture
On the Batture explores the mysterious no-man’s land between the Mississippi River and its levees in South Louisiana. This project began unexpectedly with a walk over the levee at a friend’s house in Paulina, Louisiana. Stepping across the crown of the levee, I was immediately seized by the mystery and primal energy in this ribbon of land – a wild, transitional space endlessly formed and reformed by the powerful pulse of the Mississippi River. Like fairy tales with one foot in reality and one in myth, these pictures describe a place where, as in childhood, magic and reality can converge. My exploration of the batture focuses on those moments of convergence, when our preconceptions are fluid enough, child-like enough, to allow us to revisit magical realms within the landscape of reality.
Passages
These images arose in a period of transition, loss, and growth. They whisper reminders that while our paths contain uncertainty, meaning lies in the mystery and beauty is in the journey itself.”
Education
Apprentice, Paul Caponigro, Cushing, ME
Professional Certificate, Maine Media Workshops, Rockport, ME
JD, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
M. Ed., British Literature, Vanderbilt University
BA, Literature/Art History, Vanderbilt University
Selected Collections
Louisiana State University Museum of Art, Baton Rouge, LA
U.S. Department of State, U.S. Embassy, Malaysia
Maine Media Workshops, Rockport, ME
Women in Photography International
Albemarle Corp., Baton Rouge, LA
Taylor, Porter, Brooks & Philips, Baton Rouge, LA
Alzar School, Cascade, ID
Renaissance Hotel, Baton Rouge, LA
Ochsner Medical Center, New Orleans, LA
The Dermatology Clinic, Baton Rouge, LA
Baton Rouge Water Company, Baton Rouge LA
Pennington Foundation, Baton Rouge, LA
Recent Selected Exhibitions
2019
”Passages,” Baton Rouge Gallery, Baton Rouge, LA
Carol Robinson Gallery, New Orleans, LA
PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT
APC Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Griffin Museum of Photography, Boston, MA
162 Russell Gallery, Rockport, ME2018
Frameworks Gallery, Baton Rouge, LA
Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX
Griffin Museum of Photography, Boston, MA
PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT
TPS 27 International, juried exhibit: Bath House Cultural Center, Dallas; Center for Contemporary Arts, Abilene; Options Gallery, Odessa; Sabine Street Studios, Houston, TX2017
Griffin Museum of Photography, Boston, MA
Baton Rouge Gallery, Baton Rouge, LA
Carol Robinson Gallery, New Orleans, LA
