Land scape
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
Stefan Lesueur
Lives and works in Portland, USA
M y interest in space is the source of inspiration for my artistic practice. I use a variety of media, including painting, photography, and installation to communicate my observations and develop a narrative examining the ways in which time, material, and human presence effect the nature of our surroundings.
In my ongoing series, Obscura, I examine the relationship between the photographer, the camera, and the space the photographer occupies. The project consists of photos I have taken while traveling, which I manipulate to create the effect of voiding the surrounding environment. Thus, rather than attempting to document a pristine view of iconic locations such as Yellowstone, or Tokyo Imperial Palace, the series instead profiles the people I encounter during my visits. The idea is to comment on the ways in which the ubiquitous use of cameras alters the way we interact with our environment; to serve more as a tool that promotes our culture’ s mass perpetuation of images and desire to say“ I was here” over first-hand experience.
While Obscura is my longest running project, my artistic approach is based on creating varied work with the theme of space as a continuous thread, and I’ m more than willing to challenge norms that I create for myself. It’ s in this spirit that I make works like Landscapes for Richter, in which I spray watered-down acrylic paint over Tyvek sheets to create patterns mimicking a landscape. The project contrasts Obscura rather directly both conceptually and in process. While the editing process for Obscura is intensive, Landscapes for Richter is more playful and experimental. Obscura effaces a literal place, commenting on how the camera and photographic image distract from a true location. Landscapes for Richter, however, creates an artificial space that I ultimately present through a final photographed image, emulating aerial photography.
I enjoy the comparison of these two projects because they reveal my desire to experiment. While I consider the study of space as the basis to my work, I believe there are multiple ways to approach the topic. Though varied, I don’ t see my projects as disparate. Rather they represent a more complete view of my observations.