Details:

This work is made from six unique photograms—a photograph made without a camera—with each one beginning as a graphite drawing. The smudged and smeared text looks similar to the residue of chalk writing after it has been wiped away from a blackboard.
Framed: 22.5 x 27.0 x 2.0 in.
Will take 10 business days to ship

① Artwork:

Ghost Words

This work is made from six unique photograms—a photograph made without a camera by placing an object directly on light-sensitive material. Each photogram began as a graphite drawing. The artist then covered each one in layers of white wax crayon before entering the darkroom. Stettner then used a lengthy process of smudging and smearing the text to create varying points of softness and focus. Through the inverse magic of photography, the result looks similar to the residue of chalk writing after it has been wiped away from a blackboard. Texts from various anthems are written backwards and forwards in the composition, obscuring the original words while drawing new meaning out of them.

Specs:

24 inches
20 inches
with frame
27 inches
22.5 inches
2 inches
22.5 inches

③ Artist:

Luke Stettner

Luke Stettner explores a range of experimental strategies in his photography and sculpture. He uses highly technical processes to create images and juxtaposes them with avant-garde language and concrete poetry. Stettner's work is invested in poetics, employing words to evoke both form and feeling—while still acknowledging that the meaning of any image is made by the viewer.

BIO:

Luke Stettner was born in 1979 in Englewood, NJ. In 2005, he received his MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He received his BFA from the University of Arizona in Tucson in 2002. He also studied at FAMU in Prague, Czech Republic. 

Solo exhibitions of Stettner’s work include: Viceroy, Viceroy, Viceroy, with Common Name at Kate Werble Gallery in New York City (2021) World is a Word, with Suzanne Silver at Abbatoir Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio (2021); Le recul américain at Stene Projects in Stockholm, Sweden (2019); ri ve rr hy me sw it hb lo od at Kate Werble Gallery in New York City (2019); a, b, moon, d at Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, New York, as well as at the Gallery at Ace Hotel, New York in New York City, and at Stene Projects in Stockholm, Sweden (2015); time, women, stars, death, sleep, flowers, life, eyes, a river, dreams at Kate Werble Gallery in New York City (2014); and this single monument at The Kitchen in New York City (2014); among others.

Group exhibitions that have shown Stettner’s work include: Double Negative at ChaShaMa in New York City (2019); Objects Like Us at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut (2018); Greater Columbus 2018 at the Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, Ohio (2018); Rubbings at Skibum MacArthur in Los Angeles, California (2017); Source: Nature at Park Hyatt New York Avenue Gallery in New York City (2017); Camouflage at Stene Projects Gallery in Stockholm, Sweden (2017); Gathered: Snapshots from the Peter J. Cohen Gift and Works by Carmen Winant and Luke Stettner at the Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, Ohio (2016); Tapping at Kansas in New York City (2016); Manifolds at Kunsthal Charlottenburg in Copenhagen, Denmark (2016); Unfixed: The Fugative Image at Transformer Station in Cleveland, Ohio (2016); and Mirror Mirror at Kate Werble Gallery in New York City (2016); among others.

In 2017–2018, Stettner was the recipient of a Greater Columbus Arts Council Visual Arts Fellowship in Columbus, Ohio. He received a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Residency in New York City in 2013, as well as a residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Madison, Maine in 2010.

Stettner’s work has been covered in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, The New York Observer, The Village Voice and The Columbus Dispatch.

Stettner lives and works in Columbus, Ohio.

Luke Stettner:
Ghost Words, 2021
6 unique gelatin silver prints
20.0 × 24.0 inches /
Luke Stettner:
Ghost Words, 2021
6 unique gelatin silver prints
20.0 × 24.0 inches /