On September 18th, artist and photographer Florence Montmare's Illuminations exhibition will make its world premiere at Ivy Brown Gallery. Illuminations is a multidisciplinary experience that engages the audience through photographs, text, and site-specific installation using open narratives that allow the viewers to have their own interpretations. Illuminations is the culmination of over ten years of work, experimentation, and process on the part of the artist and her collaborators. Funded in part by an Indiegogo pre-sale of some of the most compelling works of the series, there is still time in the online pre-sale to purchase prints, learn more about the project, and watch a video made by Ms. Montmare and her collaborators.

Explaining the project, Ms. Montmare says, "Illuminations started in 2002 when a relationship I had at the time was slowly falling apart. To try and save what we had, we rented a large stylish apartment in Stockholm, hoping that a change of scenery would have a positive effect. Instead, the large space amplified the emotional distance between us, and made the inevitable break even more obvious. As a way of documenting our last days together, and also forcing me to stay in the bed and fight my severe insomnia, I started making one photograph every night. The camera shutter was left open for 3 to 8 hours in a darkened bedroom, and as the morning light arrived the exposure was interrupted. It is a private journal, documenting time and memory, where present meets past."

12 years have past since the project was originally conceived and the relationship disintegrated. On the 12th of October Florence will wait for her previous partner to complete the works by waiting in bed for 12 hours in the Ivy Brown Gallery to take one last picture together. Florence - “ I count the minutes and hope for the best, I live in a glasshouse of expectations, come let’s listen to the rain together. 12 is my lucky number.” Sometimes there are only questions.

By looking deeply into, and exposing, her personal experiences Ms. Montmare hopes people are able to connect to something deeper within themselves.

Florence Montmare was born in Vienna and grew up in Stockholm, raised by Swedish and Greek parents. She graduated with an MBA in Innovation and Design Management from Linnaeus University in Sweden and worked for several years as a creative consultant in corporate advertising, before traveling South America with her Nikon F-301, She has worked on collaborations with international creative agencies and artists such as Sam Samore and Robert Blake, and currently creates and direct creative content for print and online media, exhibitions, television and film, while lecturing and showing at universities and galleries internationally.