Changing places

Downtown Wilmington is getting a new art space, but just for a little while.

Anchorlight Wilmington's gallery at 1 S. Front St. is a short-term use of the old River Rat bar. Developer James Goodnight has plans for the space that won't go into effect for another year. So instead of letting it sit vacant, he offered it up to Shelley Smith, creative director of Anchorlight, a hub for art studios, exhibitions and residencies in Raleigh. She has temporarily turned the space into an Anchorlight satellite, bringing exhibitions, residency opportunities and community programming to downtown Wilmington.

Anchorlight Wilmington will debut with "Parameters," an exhibition of multimedia collage by Raleigh artist Luke Buchanan. The show opens with a public reception 6-9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 14.

Fittingly, Buchanan is also in the business of redefining space. For his new series on display in "Parameters," Buchanan photographs city sights that some might deem mundane — old warehouses, rickety fire escapes and expansive parking lots. Buchanan then manipulates the images into collages, where they become entirely new spaces, completely fictional and yet familiar.

"The photographs are real. They're of a real place and a real time," Buchanan said. "The collage materials are more ephemeral. They're more of memories, and the things that fill in the gaps, so to speak: literally, they're filling in the negative space that is not covered in photographs. And then I paint over the top to kind of unify it and make it partially real, partially dreamy, in a way that allows the viewer to put themselves into the place."

Buchanan's interest in space is grounded in his first career path: He started college at North Carolina State University with a focus in architecture. As a freshman, Buchanan enrolled in a painting class with Lope Max Diaz, who would became his mentor.

"I started painting kind of as a diversion from architecture," Buchanan said. "I wanted something tactile. I like to use my hands, and architecture was really turning into a mouse-and-keyboard kind of thing. People don't do hand-drafting anymore."

In class, Buchanan showed Diaz some of the architectural photographs he'd been taking.

"I said, 'I want to paint these places,' and he said, 'Why would you paint those places when you already have these photographs of them?' And that's when I came up with the idea to start painting on top of the photographs and to start manipulating the space."

Buchanan embraced the freedom of painting. Unlike architecture, which is often at the mercy of clients, budgets and the laws of physics, painting allowed Buchanan total control over his creative process.

"I was able to start experimenting and kind of investigating what it was I appreciated about these older spaces," he said. "I kind of came up with the idea that different people experience the same space in their own ways, and I was able to push that further into thinking about memory and experience and things that we share as humans."

The collages in "Parameters" are a departure from Buchanan's mostly representational renderings of real-life spaces.

"As I was painting, the buildings started to get smaller and smaller," Buchanan said. "The space around it that I was filling with collage started to get bigger and bigger. So I said, 'I'm really interested in painting a parking lot. Not the building but the parking lot of the building, the empty space out front.'"

The works blur reality, evoking memories of a distant place, vacant and welcoming.

"I very seldom paint human figures into my paintings so that the viewer themselves can be alone with the space," Buchanan said. "And very often they'll say (something like), 'Where is this? It reminds me of the supermarket that I used to go to when I was a kid."

"The fact that you have a place that is important to you that seems as boring and simple as the back of a building where the garbage cans are," he continued, "that's what really gets me."

Contact StarNews arts and entertainment at 910-343-2343.

Want to go?

What: “Parameters,” an exhibition of multimedia collages by Raleigh artist Luke Buchanan

When: “Parameters" opens with a public reception 6 to 9 p.m. Dec. 14.

Where: Anchorlight Wilmington, 1 S. Front St.

Info: The show will also host a Fourth Friday reception Dec. 28, and a closing reception Jan. 18.

Details: AnchorlightRaleigh.com