Luc Demers 2012

Trace                                                                   

September 13 – December 21

Trace represents a selective cross-section of my creative process over the last few years. Though the minimal compositions of window shades and the photographed chalkboard drawings of celestial bodies seem disparate, they are closely related in my art making process. The work exhibited here results from the ebb and flow between these two modes of creation. As I move back and forth between processes, the work develops as a whole. My work is an exploration of photography’s relationship to absence, memory, and the viewer.

Photography speaks to what is not there. There is no light in photographs; they are simply a range of values on a substrate. Documented moments slip away in time. Memories, which a photograph may spark in the viewer’s mind, are not present in the photograph itself. What is present in a photograph is an opportunity to see in a way that is both similar and separate from our perception of the world. We find a clear connection to the past, and a connection to our own memories. I make photographs to see the world in a way that my eyes cannot accomplish on their own.

Biography

Luc Demers is an artist living in Southern Maine. In the early nineties he studied art at USM, completing the BFA program with a concentration in photography.  In 1994, while continuing to pursue his personal work, he began working as a freelance photographer as well as shooting editorial work for The Casco Bay Weekly and The Maine Times. In 2010 he earned his MFA in Visual Art at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Currently, Demers is a working and exhibiting artist as well as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Maine at Augusta teaching art. 

Learn more about Luc’s work at www.lucdemers.com