Elemental States: Justin Levesque and Sage Lewis

In their photo-based works, Levesque and Lewis look to the edges of nature for inspiration and meaning. Levesque investigates the Arctic Circle as both ancient and fleeting, as it adjusts to climate change and human interventions. Lewis explores her personal histories via the rock and mineral formations of the desert. Rather than presenting these environments as solitary and barren, the artists imbue them with poetic abundance. 

Justin Levesque takes an interdisciplinary approach to image-making with a consideration for the materiality and tradition of formal photography. He received his BFA in Photography from the University of Southern Maine, and has held residencies at The Arctic Circle and aboard an Eimskip container ship en route for Iceland. Levesque has exhibited at PhoPa Gallery in Portland, ME, Midwest Center for Photography in Wichita, KS, Terrault Contemporary in Baltimore, MD, Hera Gallery in Wakefield, RI, and JanKossen Contemporary in New York City. In 2016, he received The Kindling Fund from Space Gallery and organized an exhibition of his works in a shipping container (ICELANDx207: Container) that traveled throughout the state of Maine. 

Sage Lewis is interested in the connections between concepts, processes and materials through a variety of media. She received her BFA from the Maine College of Art, and her MFA from The Ohio State University. Lewis has held residencies at the Stephen Pace House Residency in Stonington, ME and Project Space Residency, Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY. She has recently exhibited at Able Baker Contemporary in Portland, ME, the Denison Museum in Granville, OH, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and Hamad bin Khalifa University Art Gallery in Doha, Qatar.