Courtney Lehikainen was born and raised in Central California where she didn’t pick up a camera until her senior year of high school and then decided to do it forever. She received a BFA in photography from Brigham Young University in 2022 where she first began working in alternative photographic processes and film. Her artistic practice centers around representing the misunderstood and unfairly judged through visual storytelling often combining writing and visual arts. She continues to focus her time and her camera on the strange and hard to love in the southern Utah Valley with her husband, Jared, and two cats, Kaz and Murp.
ARTIST STATEMENT
This series confronts humanity’s urge to look away while exploring the contradictory impulse to get closer to the things that may make us uncomfortable. These images are bloody and gruesome, they are depicting violent death. But these animals were once full of life and energy, ears twitching and eyes darting. Their lives should not end without the honor of a witness, or a hundred witnesses. There is no such thing as a small death.
IMAGES
Courtney Lehikainen, “Pheasant,” 2023, archival pigment print, 8 x 12 in.
Courtney Lehikainen, “Rabbit,” 2023, archival pigment print, 8 x 12 in.
Courtney Lehikainen, “Doe,” 2023, archival pigment print, 8 x 12 in.
Courtney Lehikainen, “Twins,” 2023, archival pigment print, 8 x 12 in.
Courtney Lehikainen, “Dear,” 2023, archival pigment print, 8 x 12 in.
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Categories: Photography | Utah Artists - L
