Kirstin Orr

Kirstin Orr is an undergraduate student at DJCAD studying fine art; taking interest in photography, painting and printmaking. In recent months, Kirstin has experienced the loss of her dog Breagha which inspired the project ‘Navigating Grief’, exploring the themes of loss and emotions.

Creating art is an outlet for Kirstin, which has helped with the process of reaching acceptance. Harnessing this emotion, Kirstin has researched into many aspects of grief such as how cultures grieve around the world, which later manifested itself into the photo series ‘Anti-Baptism’.

‘Anti-Baptism’ is a two-part photography series influenced by research into contemporary photographer Christy Lee Rogers and the use of water in her photographs. In Kirstin’s ‘Anti-Baptism’ series, the water symbolizes the overwhelming and suffocating emotions felt during the grieving process. Deliberately, she chose to use her mother as the subject of her photos to embody the ‘circle of life’. This then developed onto ‘Submerged’, an oil painting, and many acetone transfer prints.

Experimenting with Photoshop, the colours within the images were manipulated to create an atmosphere within the photographs which coincides with her grief. These images were then utilized to create acetone transfer prints on a much bigger scale, creating significant and impactful works.