Figur 612-10-2, from the "Figure" series

About the Photographer

Lüders, Marc

German, b. 1963

Marc Lüders combines painting and photography to create a complex interplay between reality and illusion. In his Figure series, Lüders takes photographs of generally desolate spaces: construction sites, abandoned parking lots, an occasional pastoral landscape. He then paints standing human figures directly into the scenes. The figures are derived from photographs of crowded city life—furtively shot at street corners, crosswalks, and sidewalks—which explains the self-absorbed stance. Lüders plucks these figures out of their urban space and drops them into a new context. He depends on photography's inherit tendency to make each image believable, but there is a disturbing suggestion that these figures are not comfortable in either their new environments or the original ones.

Marc Lüders was born in 1963 in Hamburg, Germany. He studied at Graphic Design College Hamburg (1986) and University of Anthropology and Philosophy in Mainz (1994). His work has been exhibited in Gallery Levy, Hamburg; l'institute d'art, Marseille, France; Kunsthalle Hamburg, Germany; and Kunsthalle Bern, Suisse.