Lieven Lefere

Roeselare, Belgium

Lieven Lefere (b. 1978, Roeselare, BE) is an artist who plays with the complex relationship between reality and the photographic image.

Lefere is extremely meticulous in his work and his process is remarkably slow. With great care, he manipulates all the parameters that make a photograph what it is. His process often starts months before the picture is taken. He constructs his images with a certain scale and framing in mind, models the space, makes maquettes, decides how he wants the light to fall on the scene. Lefere creates a unique atmosphere in his images, which far transcend photography of the purely documentary kind, depicting reality in a similar way to how it appears in painting or architecture. The absence of human figures and his fascination with impermanence reinforce that atmosphere. In Lefere’s work, time seems manipulated: delayed, frozen or even absent.

Due to his approach, Lefere’s images are always developed over an extended period of time. This protracted process yields highly layered images that are charged with meaning and require patience to decipher. They are the antithesis of what we usually associate with photography: more a constructed intention than a slice of life, more monument than snapshot. Cryptic, evocative and alienating all at once. 

© Lieven Lefere 
photos (1) Rock formation,
(2) Two-way mountain V