Kevin O'Connell:

Renewable Energy Landscapes

Kevin O’Connell: Renewable Energy Landscapes presented a collection of photographs of the American West by the Colorado-based artist. Kevin O’Connell has focused on this landscape since 1989. Trained as a civil engineer and as an attorney, Kevin now works on water engineering projects, is well versed in issues of the American West ,and is focused as an artist on discussions concerning the reconciliation of how we live in these landscapes. His time as an artist has been spent wandering what most have historically considered “marginal lands” of the plains and high deserts - environments that are fragile and slow to repair themselves. Beckoned to these vast and open spaces, he has continually been amazed at how each year it takes longer and longer to get to these places, as development, extractive industries and now the renewable energy boom, claim more of the horizon and the volume it contains.

Kevin’s work for this exhibition poses a number of questions about people’s ability to view these lands as fully valuable - regardless of what they can produce for our energy thirst - and about the value of unfettered space. The work asks us to consider our own presence in these landscapes and to reconcile our own needs, both physical and spiritual.

Kevin was born in Hammond, Indiana and lives and works in Colorado.