Laura Letinsky (b. 1962, Canada) is a photographer and visual artist whose work is marked by a refined dialogue with the tradition of painting. Her compositions explore universal themes such as desire, introspection, intimacy, and the fragility of human existence, revisiting the classical genre of still life through a deeply contemporary and conceptual lens.
Her photographic series Who Loves the Sun is a prime example: the artist arranges everyday objects—plates, glasses, vases, cut flowers, food scraps, leaves, pieces of fruit and vegetables—on tables, creating scenes that suggest the aftermath of a meal. However, the meal, like the remnants depicted, never actually took place. The elements are placed with meticulous care, according to an order that appears casual but is in fact calculated, evoking a deliberate dissonance that prompts the viewer’s reflection.
In these compositions, Letinsky brings together organic and inorganic matter, drawing on motifs typical of still life painting and memento mori. The leftovers—food remnants—become metaphors for the passage of time, decay, and the transience of life. The presence of vegetal elements such as wilted flowers, sprouts, and discarded peels amplifies this sense of impermanence. The artist reinterprets these 17th-century themes by infusing the images with a contemporary aesthetic and conceptual dimension that speaks directly to the present. Light—both natural and artificial—plays a crucial role in shaping the atmosphere, helping to suspend the scene in an indefinite time, somewhere between the real and the metaphysical, between the materiality of daily life and the spirituality of memory.
On the tables reigns a disturbed order—a visual chaos that is nonetheless deliberate. Tablecloths are stained, plates are dirty, fruits are cut, and peels are left behind, as traces of a human action just completed. The composition thus becomes a visual reflection on domestic life, on care and neglect.
In Secrets, leftovers of bread, fruit, and vegetables lie scattered on the table, while a stained tablecloth—perhaps marked by the juices of the food itself—hints at the trace of a human gesture. Amid the disorder, a cut flower and a small vase of sprouts introduce an element of fleeting grace and fragility, underlining the delicate balance between beauty and decay. Beneath a cutting board, almost hidden yet clearly visible, an open magazine reveals images of paintings, making the reference to art history explicit and reinforcing the connection between photography and the painterly tradition.
The title of the series, Who Loves the Sun, alludes to the essential role of light in Letinsky’s compositions. Light is not merely a technical tool, but a true narrative element—capable of shaping volumes, emphasizing textures, and casting shadows that speak as much as the objects themselves.
Art, in her work, emerges from the remnants of daily life, and light is the instrument through which this transformation takes form.

Secrets, 2022, From the series Who Loves the Sun
© Laura Letinsky. Courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York

30/07/25