Rachelle Bussières is a French-Canadian artist based in New York whose practice investigates light, time, perception, and the materiality of photography. She holds an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, and her work has been exhibited across North America and Europe, including the United States, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Turkey. She has also participated in international residencies such as the Banff Centre, Penumbra Foundation, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Silver Art Projects. Her work is included in several public and private collections, among them the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), Arter Contemporary Art Museum (Istanbul) and the SFMOMA Library. She received second place in the Snider Prize from the Museum of Contemporary Photography and was a finalist for the Aperture Portfolio Prize. She has also received numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts. In addition, she is the founder of LUMIERE NYC, a platform dedicated to experimental light-based photographic practices.

Bussières’ practice exists at the intersection of photography and sculpture, emphasizing material experimentation, conceptual rigor, and temporal engagement. She employs lumen printing, an early analog photographic technique, exposing light-sensitive silver paper to controlled and natural light conditions over periods ranging from seconds to several days. The resulting works are unique surfaces in which light, time, and environment become active collaborators, rather than mere tools. Through masking, shadowing, and selective exposure, she sculpts tonal gradations and color-luminous blues, violets, pinks, and warm beiges-that emerge from the paper itself, creating a visual record of temporality and place. Her work situates itself within a historical lineage that includes photograms, the Light and Space movement, Minimalism, and Color Field painting, as well as pioneers like Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy, while transforming this legacy into a contemporary dialogue with nature and perception. Childhood experiences in the wilderness of northeastern Québec and her time living off-grid in Northern California inform her sensitivity to environmental rhythms, allowing her work to convey both intimate ecological awareness and universal temporal experience.

Bussières’ prints are palimpsests of light and time, embodying events rather than static representations. Each surface reflects the interaction between natural forces, human gestures, and chance, inviting viewers to pause, perceive, and contemplate the flow of light, the passage of time, and the vulnerability of perception.

RACHELLE BUSSIERES

RACHELLE BUSSIERES