Carolyn Drake

About Carolyn Drake

Caroline Drake (US, 1971) currently lives and works in Vallejo, California. She studied communication, culture, and history at Brown University, graduating in 1994. Before starting her career in photography, she worked as a multimedia employee in New York. The artist joined the Magnum photo agency in 2015, starting as a nominee member and gradually becoming a full member in 2019.

Her work has received numerous awards. She notably received the World Press Photo Award and the Lange-Taylor Prize in 2008. Additionally, she has been supported regularly through various grants. Recently, she was awarded the HCB Prize for her project "Men Untitled." This prize represents significant support for artists, enabling them to undertake or continue ambitious projects.

Photographic approach of Carolyn Drake

Through her long-term projects, she seeks to deconstruct narratives that have traversed history. Furthermore, she endeavors to reinterpret them in an imaginative and creative manner.

Carolyn Drake settled in Istanbul for several years to work on projects situated in Eurasian regions. Through numerous journeys in Asia, she focused on ethnic minorities positioned in dominance by the societal norms prevalent at that time.

Subsequently, returning to the United States, she created two additional photography series. Initially, she collaborated with a community of women from Mississippi, naming the series "Knit Club" after this community. Finally, She expanded this exploration of genders and identities to focus on men and their place within American society as a whole. This contribution constitutes the artist's latest project titled "Men Untitled."

Exhibitions

The artist's work has been exhibited and disseminated internationally through both individual and collective exhibitions. Her projects have been showcased at The Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford, UK), The Half King (New York, USA), Houston Center for Photography (Houston, USA), Officine Fotografiche (Rome, Italy), and the Henri-Cartier Bresson Foundation (Paris, France).

Member of the Magnum agency, Carolyn Drake is part of the Close Enough exhibition. This exhibition brings together 12 female photographers who are members of the agency and aims to establish connections and enter as deeply as possible into the intimacy of the subjects photographed. The exhibition has been showcased in New York and at the Hangar Photo Art Center in Brussels. Additionally, Carolyn Drake is represented by the Yancey Richardson gallery located in New York.

Art Book Publications by Carolyn Drake

Her projects are then translated into photography books. The artist has self-published three books in the 2010s, such as Two Rivers (2013), Wild Pigeon (2014), and Internat (2017). Starting from 2020, she began collaborating with a publisher and released Knit Club (TBW Books, 2020) and Men Untitled (TBW Books, 2023), available on the e-shop.