LIPA (Lumière International Photography Award) is the first biennial Korean international photography award established by Gallery Lumière. With a mission to develop the international photography market and the global art market, Gallery Lumière selects the award-winning artist amongst many distinguished and creative young artists who passionately engage in their work. The selection undergoes a strict process and through co-working with sponsor companies, we support the winner in the form of a combined provision of scholarship and fellowship that meets global financial criteria. LIPA aims to promote the award-winning artist to successfully enter the international art scene and to establish oneself as a globally recognized artist in the field of international photography.

The sponsor companies of LIPA (Lumiere International Photography Award) have provided support towards art and culture through global art sponsorship programs, and their support towards LIPA has added a new page in the history of art sponsorship.

As the globally notable awards, established under the initiative of gallerists, there are the ‘National Competition,’ award from Soho Photo Gallery in New York, and an award by Fraser Gallery from Washington. LIPA (Lumiere International Photography Award), which consists of the well-organized patronage system, made possible thorough cooperation with sponsor companies, is distinguished from other awards in terms of its strong financial stability.

The vigorous Mecenat activities of these companies have provided the great assistance to the artists’ performances in the most practical way. As we can see from the history of art patrons, the Medici family’s achievements prove the great influence of sponsors in the contemporary era. The active art patronage system led by the Medici family of Florence, the exceptionally influential and passionate patrons in art, has brought the dramatic cultural expansion in the Renaissance period. Moreover, this effect even brought significant influence on economical and social ripple, which has opened a new chapter in the history of mankind.

In modern society, a number of corporations around the world endeavor to support the growth of art community like the Medici family. For instance, in 2000, a German investment firm built a new office building at Frankfurt Hausen to begin a collection of a number of works by modern photographers. Art Collection Borse - which comprises approximately five hundred pieces of works by forty photographers from both Germany and other countries - is supported by a number of German investment firms, and has been exhibited in this new building. Although Art Collection Borse realistically portrays modern society, the urban experience, endless rhythm of architectural facades, and tranquil natural sceneries, it shows the artists’ critical views on diverse communities in the contemporary world. Every year since 2005, the ‘Deutsche Borse Photography Prize’ sponsors its living artist who is selected without discrimination to nationality. HSBC, the leading global bank, established ‘Fondation HSBC pour la Photographie’ in 1995 to support a variety of sponsoring organizations, promoting art sponsorship around the world. UBS, a notable global financial services firm has been sponsoring the international art fair, Art Basel, through its UBS Art Collection for the past thirteen years. The internationally recognized European bank, Deutsche Bank, known for having the largest collection consisting of over fifty thousand pieces of artworks continues to manage a wide range of collections and accepts the works by young rising artists.

LIPA consists of sponsor companies that actively engage in international business. These corporations have provided support towards art and culture through LIPA, a global art sponsorship program provided by Gallery Lumiere, adding a new page in the history of art sponsorship.

The works of Eelco Brand expresses the infinite energy and diversity found in nature. The more interesting thing is that the visually fascinating world that deals with nature is actually hand-made works that use high technology developed by mankind. The natural world created by Eelco Brand does not exist in reality. It is an imaginary world that has been created through the process digital technology. Through this kind of process, his works make us think about the subject of mimesis. Mankind has existed in this system of imitation. Through this process of duplication, repetition and adaptation, human culture has been created and reproduced. Furthermore, nature and humankind has always been in the center of this relationship, where the two imitates each other and lives in harmony.

The 3D animation works by Eelco Brand does not have a set beginning or end, and does not hold a specific story. These ‘moving paintings’ are continuous scenes of nature which goes beyond the 2-dimentional surface, and with the addition of sound and movement invites us into a mesmerizing natural world. Furthermore, his digital prints and animations contains unidentifiable but interesting objects, and recently he has continuously worked on materializing these objects into real touchable sculptural forms, thus developing his works further where imagination and reality has a chance meeting.

The third LIPA artist Eelco Brand crosses the boundaries between different genres of art. His works hold a particular creativity and technology that develops as his artistic career progresses. The computer technology he applies in his creation produces digital paintings and animations which is very detailed that it looks very real, as if an image captured in photographic form. He aims to recreate nature, the imaginary natural world is visually brought to life, hence the world he created is an illusion of the nature we behold in our minds, familiar from reality, but a different new world. Recently his works have gone beyond nature and he places unidentifiable objects in his hand-made natural scenes, and these objects are also in turn materialized into sculptural forms. “Every image is made out of digital scratch by hand and started with nothing, as an empty canvas for a painter.”- Eelco Brand

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The proper form would be © Eelco Brand/courtesy Gallery Lumiere