Odette England

Bio: Odette England received an MFA with Honors from the Rhode Island School of Design and a PhD from the Australian National University. Her work has shown in more than 90 solo, two-person and group exhibitions worldwide. Notable venues include: George Eastman House (Rochester, NY); Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago, IL); New Mexico Museum of Art (Santa Fe, NM); Fort Wayne Museum of Art (Fort Wayne, IN); RISD Museum (Providence, RI); Colorado Photographic Arts Center (Denver, CO); State Library of South Australia (Adelaide, South Australia); Center for Photography at Woodstock (Woodstock, NY); Perth Center for Photography (Perth, Western Australia); MacDonald Stewart Art Center, University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada); Durham Art Gallery (Durham, England, UK). England’s work has appeared in American Photo, Photograph, The Brooklyn Rail, Photo District News, Hotshoe International, the British Journal of Photography, Australian Art Monthly, Musee magazine, GUP magazine, Lenscratch and Feature Shoot, among others. Awards England has received include the Magenta Foundation Flash Forward Emerging Photographers Award (UK winner, twice) and the CENTER $5,000 Project Launch Award. In 2015, she was shortlisted for the Australian Photobook of the Year. England is also a recipient of the HotShoe Magazine Photofusion Photography Award and The Print Center Honorary Council Award for Excellence. Recent artist residencies include the prestigious invitation-only Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency in Captiva, Florida, where England collaborated with the artist Jennifer Garza-Cuen. England has given lectures and critiques at Harvard University, Princeton University, Stanford University, Brown University, the School of Visual Arts in New York, Amherst College, the Penumbra Foundation, Kenyon College, the University of Melbourne, and the Art Gallery of South Australia, among others. England is the director of the Winter Garden Photograph project, for which she received a grant from the Mellon Foundation. This project includes publication of her first edited volume Keeper of the Hearth with a foreword by Charlotte Cotton (Schilt Publishing, 2020).

A permanent US resident England lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island and Long Island City, New York.

Statement: Odette England explores relationships between autobiography, gender, place, and vernacular photography. England grew up in a remote rural male-dominant dairy farming community. Her parent's now-abandoned farm and the many snapshots made by her family serve as raw materials and inspiration for England's work. Material handling and gestural concerns are key to England’s practice. She often physically manipulates her negatives or prints, intervening with their surfaces. She uses expired film, broken cameras, and tainted chemistry. Since 2005 England has revisited and photographed the remnants of this community. She walks the former farmlands with her parents who lost their livelihood to falling milk prices and a lack of government investment in agriculture. Many of the images England creates are unique, in keeping with the stories they reference. She mixes preciousness and the unrepeatable with low-fi processes to challenge accuracy and fidelity.

Website: www.odetteengland.com