Joanie Lemercier
Joanie Lemercier is a digital artist working mainly on light projections in space. His monumental piece, a sound and light installation on a wall of water, is being presented at CHRONIQUES, the Biennale of Digital Imagination, which is taking place from 12 November 2020 to 17 January 2021.
Updated on 26/11/2020
2 min
At the age of 5, Joanie Lemercier began making art on a computer after school by attending a class run by his mother, a professor of computer-assisted design at a fashion design school. His mother worked on fabric patterns during these classes, and Joanie’s love of forms has stayed with him.
After a work/study programme at a factory making haute couture, the artist moved to Bristol, United Kingdom, where he became a Video-Jockey (VJ), first solo, performing on the front of Bristol Town Hall in 2007 among others, then at the label AntiVJ, which he co-founded in 2008 with the artists Yannick Jacquet, Romain Tardy and Olivier Ratsi. He moved to New York and, in 2013, founded his own studio and trialled technical devices in order to create projections without any physical support.
“Light as a medium, space as a canvas”: such is Joanie Lemercier’s definition of his light projections in space, which play with the viewer’s visual perception. His works are recognisable for their repetitive geometric and minimalist patterns. The artist is inspired by nature and the cosmos, and the German concept of the sublime.
His work Constellations (2018), presented at the CHRONIQUES Biennale, condenses his passion for repetitive patterns, the cosmos, and large natural ensembles such as those painted by Casper Friedrich, one of his inspirations. Light is projected onto invisible particles of water, forming intangible structures in the air. The artist has made a conscious decision to break from rectangular 2D projections. With Brume (2017), a curtain of water made from a multitude of droplets to become the canvas for light projections, beams of light form a host of geometric shapes that appear to float in the air.
Joanie Lemercier has worked on stage designs for the digital creativity and electronic music festival MUTEK in Canada and Mexico, as well as with the artist Flying Lotus at his concert at the Roundhouse in London, and Portishead’s Adrian Utley as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
He has also exhibited at the China Museum of Digital Art in (CMoDA) in Beijing, at Art Basel Miami and at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States in 2013.
His studio, originally founded in New York, is now based in Brussels. His work is represented by several galleries around the world, among them Muriel Guepin in New York.
- 1982
1982
Joanie Lemercier is born in Pithiviers, France.
- 2006
2006
He makes his first solo video projections in Bristol.
- 2008
2008
He co-founds the visual label AntiVJ with Yannick Jacquet, Romain Tardy and Olivier Ratsi.
- 2013
2013
He founds his own studio in New York. He focuses on the research and development of artworks and experiences that use light projected in space.
- 2015
2015
The studio moves to Brussels, where it is run by Juliette Bibasse.
- 2020
2020
He exhibits at the Maintenant festival in Rennes, a festival of art, music and new technologies, and at CHRONIQUES, the Biennale of Digital Imagination.
Joanie Lemercier is programmed as part of Chroniques, the Biennale of Digital Imagination (taking place from 12 November 2020 to 17 January 2021). The Institut français is a partner of Chroniques with the Focus digital arts and creations.