Corey Arnold: Aleutian Dreams

Corey Arnold: Aleutian Dreams

Corey Arnold is a photographer and commercial fisherman. Since 2002, he has explored life at sea, documenting the fishing industry and the remote towns and communities across Alaska and Europe that depend on it. As much a participant as an observer, Arnold offers a unique glimpse into the inner workings of an industry that, despite its popularity at the dinner table, has largely escaped the attention of visual culture in modern times.

The photographs in Arnold’s series, Aleutian Dreams, revolve around the remote port town of Dutch Harbor, located in the Aleutian Islands between the Gulf of Alaska and the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula. Isolated from the mainland by some of the world’s most treacherous waters, Dutch Harbor is a thriving commercial fishing port nestled between steep mountains and dramatic, windswept valleys. The town’s population nearly doubles during peak seasons—typically fall and early winter—drawing seasonal fishing crews who often possess a desire to escape the safety of life at home to work in an environment filled with risk, reward, and visual grandeur. A seasoned fisherman himself, Arnold spent seven years working on the Rollo, a 107-foot commercial crab boat that was featured on the Discovery Channel’s documentary series, Deadliest Catch, in 2006. In more recent trips, Arnold has joined fishermen at sea aboard crabbers and trawlers, and on land to document the surreal landscape of fishing culture in the Aleutian Islands. His images draw focus on the ever-complicated relationship between humanity and nature as he documents the experiences of those working in notoriously dangerous yet visually striking environments.

Corey Arnold is an artist and photographer based in Portland, Oregon. He holds a BFA from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. His work has been featured by numerous publications, including Juxtapoz, Harper’s Magazine, National Geographic, The Guardian, TIME Magazine, and The New York Times. Arnold’s photographs have been exhibited widely at venues including the Ningbo Museum of Art in China, the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, and the Portland Art Museum in Oregon. He has been a Baum Award Nominee, a recipient of the Lighthouse Foundation Grant, a first-prize winner at World Press Photo, and was named one of PDN’s 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch in 2009. Arnold’s monograph, Fish-Work: The Bearing Sea, was published with wide acclaim by Nazraeli Press in 2011. Arnold is represented by Richard Heller Gallery in Los Angeles and Charles A. Hartman Fine Art in Portland, OR.

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