Luke Ikard (b. 1990, Houston, TX) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Baltimore, MD, where he is an Artist in Residence at the School 33 Art Center. He is an Adjunct Professor at George Washington University and Carroll Community College teaching courses in 3D design and new media. He completed his MFA in Multidisciplinary Art from the Mount Royal School of Art at Maryland Institute College of Art in 2017, and he received his BFA in Studio Art from Sam Houston State University in 2014. Ikard was a 2017 Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship finalist and Trawick Prize semifinalist. He received the 2015-2017 Merit Scholarship from the Mount Royal School of Art. His work is part of the College of Fine Art and Mass Communication permanent collection at Sam Houston State University. Ikard has also produced site-specific work at the Sam Houston Memorial Museum Park and has exhibited throughout the United States. His work has most recently been shown in group exhibitions at Maryland Art Place, School 33 Art Center, and the International Art Gallery in the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
Artist statement
I employ domestic objects guided by sound to create the opportunity to perceive an unfamiliar past or to invent a new one. I utilize my knowledge of sound, emerging technologies, and skills as a woodworker, to investigate the object's capacity to serve as a trace of authentic experiences. I use domestic materials, animation, science fiction soundscapes, stage equipment, 3D printing, cassette tapes, and interactive electronic technologies to create a sentiment of displacement; a longing for a home that no longer exists or never existed. In my work, interactive technology is paired with stage equipment to highlight the absence of a participant and as an invitation to perform with the object. I draw from objects that exist as samples of distanced experiences, an experience which the object can only evoke and resonate, and can never entirely recoup. These objects suggest potential narratives, loss, and memorial fragments which collide to form new events.