New Orleans native Lucien Flotte made the move to NYC to study at the School
of Visual Arts. No less a photographic artist than Philippe Halsman chose him
for an extended master Class program. Though Lucien has been a resident of
NYC with a home and successful commercial photography studio catering to
a roster of Fortune 500 companies in the Big Apple for more than 28 years,
his New Orleans roots are often subtly or proudly on display in much of his
fine art photographic oeuvre. “Growing up there, I was always attracted to
the light - whether it bounced off the muddy Mississippi, refracted from man-
made levees or was diffused by tropical mists.” The Mississippi River is an
influence to much of southern art from Memphis to New Orleans, from
Faulkner, through Twain, past Anne Rice and Easyrider. In this tradition, Lucien
carves a circuitous route, overlapping similar routes to arrive somewhere else.
His photo-combinations and manipulations create “elsewhere.” Like the false
rivers that detach from the Mississippi, he offers a hermetic environment filled
with a sense of still-motion. You round the corner to stare at the end, but there
is no mouth, no delta, no escape. But this is no dark land. It is filled with light
trapped and bent to his will, to engage his audience, and slow them down a
little. To work a little less and play a little more. A southerner’s plea, if you will,
and it is abundant in his playful surrealism.



Lucien’s approach combines traditional photography and painting on canvas
with digital technology for his final mixed media images. Some of his most
popular images begin with disparate images from both film based negatives
which are scanned and digital images combined in Photoshop and then output
to canvas. He takes brush and paint to the canvas in a final flourish to complete
the work. In the hands of someone less skilled, the resultant piece might look
like a pastiche. Lucien’s work intrigues...and draws the viewer in to their own
daydreams and imagination with his imagery.



Lucien has won many awards and prizes for his photography and is an elected
artist of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts and the Mystic Arts Center.
Lucien’s images printed with Epson Ultrachrome inks on Hahnemuhle papers
begin at $500, original canvas images begin at $900.

More Info

Gallery Show Online - Lucien Flotte: Off the Wall

Gallery Show Online - Lucien Flotte: Paths and Boundaries