"These pieces show the regenerative power of nature and human beings' insatiable appetite to expand, explore, conquer and transform nature into civility," Van Ort states. In Minescape, the photographs range from images of the mines themselves, set on stark white backgrounds, to landscapes that are unusable until meticulously cleared and images of prosthetic limbs.
Brett Van Ort was born in Washington D.C. and raised and schooled in Texas. He moved to Los Angeles, California after obtaining an undergraduate degree in film from T.C.U. Van Ort moved to London in 2008 and received his M.A. in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication shortly thereafter.Van Ort's work has been exhibited internationally[, including Photoespana, LOOK11, Liverpool's International Photography Exhibition and FORMAT in Derby, UK. He has been published in numerous magazines and webzines including Photo District News (PDN), American Photography 26, The British Journal of Photography (BJP), The New York Times Online, Vice, and BLDGBLOG, to name a few.] [His first monograph Minescape, was released as a printed book by Daylight Books in 2013. TED books and Daylight Digital converted Minescape into a digital, ebook version, days after the printed versions release.]Brett moved back to Los Angeles in 2012 to continue projects about toxic soil in America and the destruction of the Southern California high desert by the housing crisis.