Filling empty rooms

Luke Pelletier grew up in western North Carolina. He graduated with a BFA in fine art from SAIC in 2015. Living in a tourist town for much of his life, he has been heavily influenced by seasonal economies, as well as the multi-level relationships, dependence and resentment, between tourists and locals. Much of Luke’s art blurs the lines between celebrating and condemning a culture that agrees to be taken advantage of while it takes advantage of others. His art is filled with personal anecdotes, dark humor, dualities, contradictions, repetition, and scenes of paradise that are simultaneously pristine and decaying. Luke Pelletier uses photography, painting, sculpture, social practice, writing, and craft to riff on his moral dilemmas with romance, objectification, labor, competition, tourist culture, capitalism, addiction, free will, masculinity, fun, and Americana.