Luke Le - What are you looking for?

Where does the meaning of a photograph lie? Where do the limits of its authorship, spectatorship and democracy cross paths? These are questions at the heart of untrained Sydney-based artist Luke Le’s photographic practice. In his first major artist book – What are you looking for? – Le reroutes notions of diarism and the impromptu to broach new aesthetic and philosophical terrains. A kind of open letter to a former life in Melbourne, the book forms both an intensely personal gesture and a wider provocation toward the subjectivities and assumptions that underpin photography itself. These raw, intuitive images – created from scans of degraded Risograph prints – are at once rooted in and free of place. Their dynamic gaze veers toward specificity, but never quite lands. Amidst the noise of their gritty, fine grain, Le’s images leave as many questions as answers.

Luke Le (formerly Luke van Aurich) is a Sydney-based artist and designer, working with no formal training. Born in Perth in 1990, his career has spanned photography, publishing, furniture design and product design. He has exhibited his photography in various contexts in Australia and internationally. He is a cofounder of the sustainable design label and retailer Column A.