Drew Waters (b. Australia) is a photographer and writer based in Asheville, NC. He received a BA (Honors) in Cinema and Cultural Studies at La Trobe University, and an MFA in Photography from the Hartford Art School. In 2021 he was awarded the Svensk Bokkonst, Swedish Book Art Award for Shelf Life, a self published photo book. In 2022 he was awarded the Hannes Wanderer Photo Book Prize at Hartford Art School. His work explores suburban ecology, the built environment and attempts to uncover histories of place. He adopts the expectations of documentary alongside an urge to play with these expectations. His regular use of artificial lighting attempts to render the photographic frame as a stage, revealing the multiple elements at play in the making of an image.
“While living in present time and space, we occupy places, yet these same places also have the capacity to occupy us, to reveal indelible and visible traces of inherited histories, precedents, and ideals.”