Luke Erickson was born in Minneapolis on December 8, 1969. He is a photographer who has long been focused on the state of the natural environment and how it has been impacted by the encroachment of the manmade. He has been influenced by the work of photographers Timothy O’Sullivan and Robert Adams, artists Thomas Cole and Ed Ruscha, and filmmakers John Ford and Jim Jarmusch.

Luke uses both digital and analogue rangefinder cameras to produce black & white photographs that honor the documentary tradition. He is inspired to make this work because of a deep learned respect for history, an abiding interest in understanding how and why the appearance of the landscape has been transformed over time, and a desire to share his work with others.

Luke’s photographs are also, specifically, a polemic about the importance of landscape photography and a meditation on the mythology of the American West, the effects of suburban expansion, the American Dream and the exploitation of natural resources.

Luke Erickson’s photographs are in many public, private and corporate collections including: the Weisman Art Museum, Tweed Museum of Art, University of Southern California’s Fisher Art Museum, Laguna Art Museum, The Autry Museum, and University of Redlands’ Peppers Art Gallery, Cornell Museum of Fine Arts and the Minnesota Historical Society.

Luke lived in Los Angeles for many years working as a set photographer and as a location scout/photographer on movie and television productions. While there he fell in love with the Los Angeles River and photographed it exhaustively.

Luke is a recipient of a 2015 Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, which will fund an exhibition of photographs, titled CONFLUENCE, an examination of the historic, economic and social importance of the Mississippi, Minnesota and St. Croix Rivers. Particular attention will be given to the areas historically occupied by Native American tribes, now largely displaced, which once inhabited the banks of these rivers.

Luke earned a bachelor’s degree in art and art history from the University of Redlands, Redlands, CA and a master’s degree in the history of art from the University of Illinois, Chicago with an emphasis on the history of photography.

Luke Erickson also works as an independent art curator and as a photography curator for the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography (FEP). He is curator of many photography exhibitions, including exhibitions by Minnesota photographers Chris Faust and Stuart Klipper. In 2013 Luke curated a highly successful photography exhibition in a museum in Arles, France at the Rencontres d'Arles, the oldest and largest photo festival in Europe. He teaches at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.