Neil Ever Osborne

Biography

Neil Ever Osborne (b. 1978) Positioned at the convergence of documentary and art, the work of Neil Ever Osborne examines the complex, troubled, yet inextricable link between people and planet with the aim of protecting our only shared home.

For more than fifteen years, the Toronto-based conservation photojournalist and visual artist — represented by National Geographic Creative — has been capturing compelling images of the earth’s last wild places — many of which remain fragile and in desperate need of protection — from the mountains of the Pacific Northwest to the jungles of Indonesia to the shores of the Falkland Islands.

His new exhibit, HOME:, celebrates wilderness and the underappreciated benefits it provides to all of us. It attempts to demystify the foreignness of such natural worlds, and of nature in general, and replace the very idea of “the environment” with a concept more accessible and relatable to each of us: a healthy home. These images — a caged orangutan, a road slashed through a forest, a venerable grizzly bear in its sanctuary — depict this concept of a shared yet threatened home with honesty and optimism.

Based in his studio in Canada’s largest metropolis, Osborne understands the urgent need to recast the dialogue about the environment in ways that speak also to those who have little firsthand experience of “the wild.” The inherent message is that humanity, so long considered apart from nature, is in fact a part of it.

In the modern world terms such as “environment” and “conservation” have lost their meaning. Despite this, the discussion around these concepts must continue because so many of our social concerns are the direct result of an unhealthy planet. Through a combination of gritty documentary account and aesthetic beauty, Osborne’s work seeks out, locates, and reframes all of this — in a new, nonverbal, yet universal language.

In HOME:, we witness this language at work. Osborne’s images reverberate with echoes from the depths of wilderness — and the encroaching proximity of humanity’s ubiquitous presence — capturing through his unique vision these stories of home.