Chris Levine builds portraits out of pure light. He uses lasers, holograms and lenticular printing to capture his sitters somewhere between stillness and presence. He is best known for Lightness of Being, an image of Queen Elizabeth II with her eyes closed. The National Portrait Gallery called it the most evocative image of a royal by any artist. It was taken during a brief pause in a longer, more formal sitting.
Levine has gone on to photograph subjects including the Dalai Lama, Kate Moss and Grace Jones using the same meditative, light-based approach. He continues to move between fine art, fashion and large scale immersive installation.
Levine has gone on to photograph subjects including the Dalai Lama, Kate Moss and Grace Jones using the same meditative, light-based approach. He continues to move between fine art, fashion and large scale immersive installation.
Summary
Chris Levine builds portraits out of pure light. He uses lasers, holograms and lenticular printing to capture his sitters somewhere between stillness and presence. He is best known for Lightness of Being, an image of Queen Elizabeth II with her eyes closed. The National Portrait Gallery called it the most evocative image of a royal by any artist. It was taken during a brief pause in a longer, more formal sitting.
Levine has gone on to photograph subjects including the Dalai Lama, Kate Moss and Grace Jones using the same meditative, light-based approach. He continues to move between fine art, fashion and large scale immersive installation.
Levine has gone on to photograph subjects including the Dalai Lama, Kate Moss and Grace Jones using the same meditative, light-based approach. He continues to move between fine art, fashion and large scale immersive installation.
Artworks by Chris Levine
About Chris Levine
Biography
About Chris Levine
Levine studied graphic design at Chelsea School of Art, then completed an MA in computer graphics at Central Saint Martins. That training grounded his later work in the mechanics of image making as much as in art history. He has described light as intrinsic to how people perceive reality, working with lasers as what he calls a very pure form of light.
A portrait with her eyes closed
Levine's 2004 sitting with Queen Elizabeth II was commissioned by the Jersey Heritage Trust to mark 800 years of the island's allegiance to the Crown. He used a high resolution camera moving along a linear track to capture multiple viewpoints. Lightness of Being shows the monarch with her eyes closed in a moment of stillness. It was taken during a pause when she rested between formal poses.
A related portrait, Equanimity, was presented to the National Portrait Gallery in 2011. It was later reworked as The Diamond Queen, a version set with more than 1,000 diamonds. It appeared on a Jersey banknote and postage stamp to mark the Diamond Jubilee in 2012.
Lenticular light, printed
Levine's portraits are most often presented as lenticular prints in illuminated lightboxes. The technique combines several exposures behind a ridged lens, so the image appears to shift as a viewer moves past it. His work with Queen Elizabeth II and later sitters, including Kate Moss and Sir Ranulph Fiennes, has used the same process. He has also worked in more conventional archival inkjet prints and hand-finished screenprints.
In 2015, Levine became only the second artist, after Annie Leibovitz, to take a formal portrait of the Dalai Lama. Proceeds went to earthquake relief in Nepal.
Biography
About Chris Levine
Levine studied graphic design at Chelsea School of Art, then completed an MA in computer graphics at Central Saint Martins. That training grounded his later work in the mechanics of image making as much as in art history. He has described light as intrinsic to how people perceive reality, working with lasers as what he calls a very pure form of light.
A portrait with her eyes closed
Levine's 2004 sitting with Queen Elizabeth II was commissioned by the Jersey Heritage Trust to mark 800 years of the island's allegiance to the Crown. He used a high resolution camera moving along a linear track to capture multiple viewpoints. Lightness of Being shows the monarch with her eyes closed in a moment of stillness. It was taken during a pause when she rested between formal poses.
A related portrait, Equanimity, was presented to the National Portrait Gallery in 2011. It was later reworked as The Diamond Queen, a version set with more than 1,000 diamonds. It appeared on a Jersey banknote and postage stamp to mark the Diamond Jubilee in 2012.
Lenticular light, printed
Levine's portraits are most often presented as lenticular prints in illuminated lightboxes. The technique combines several exposures behind a ridged lens, so the image appears to shift as a viewer moves past it. His work with Queen Elizabeth II and later sitters, including Kate Moss and Sir Ranulph Fiennes, has used the same process. He has also worked in more conventional archival inkjet prints and hand-finished screenprints.
In 2015, Levine became only the second artist, after Annie Leibovitz, to take a formal portrait of the Dalai Lama. Proceeds went to earthquake relief in Nepal.