TITLE: Life Blood : Ohio Rivers
This series of landscapes intimately explores Northeast Ohio's rivers and streams using traditional 35mm analog photography. Ohio has both a wealth of fresh water and a storied history of polluting said water. The Cuyahoga River, which cuts through the heart of Cleveland, has caught on fire due to corporate pollution several times since the Industrial Revolution. While clean up and conservation measures have been adopted, the area remains a precarious ecosystem and recent deregulation efforts within the government have environmental groups worried about further devastation and its effects on the land, the water supply, and the people who consume these resources. This series explores the rivers that flow from Lake Erie into the Ohio interior and their relationships to the surrounding environment. Feeding and reflecting the entire landscape, these waterways exert power and influence over the region in spite of their vulnerability to human intervention. These images, like much of my work, seek to strengthen the connection between humans and the natural world by mining the psychic and spiritual connections between landscape the people who would inquire of it. These waters are imbued with the emotions of the viewer as well as their own energetic charge, making it crystal clear that we need to work with these living ecosystems as much as we need to work with the people who live there so that we may continue to enjoy these sublime visions for generations to come. Through beauty I hope will come mutual understanding and a return to living as one with the land, as opposed to taking from it for our own selfish gain. Water is life, and in spite of everything life finds a way.
AUTHOR: Kat Cade (United States)
Kat Cade is a fine artist, curator, and events specialist living in Cleveland, OH. Primarily working with analog photographic materials, she has been making images since the age of 15 with a focus on landscapes. Kat's work is concerned with the intimate relationship humans have with the natural world and the physical and psychic manifestations of the body in the wild. Diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder at a young age, her meditative process allows her to work through her mental illness through her artmaking, resulting in images of cracked, fragmented, gnarled, and tangled landscapes with an almost supernatural gravity. Kat studied foundations at Kansas City Art Institute and is currently completing a Bachelor's degree in Art History. She has shown in both large and small galleries such as CICA Museum, Cleveland Print Room, and Derek Hess Gallery and completed a two month residency at Burren College of Art in Ireland.
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