From the Origami Folds series, Untitled #19
Howard Lewis is a photographer, sculptor, and inventor whose work lives at the intersection of art and science. His images make the invisible tangible — physical forces caught mid-motion, structures under tension, the quiet fragility of environmental systems, the geometry hidden inside a fold of paper. Working experimentally in the studio, he builds sculptural arrangements, manipulates light, and pushes photographic materials to reveal what the eye alone cannot see.
Lewis trained in film at Boston University and built a career as a commercial and editorial photographer before stepping away to pursue entirely self-directed work. A chance encounter with Dr. Edwin Land — physicist, inventor, and founder of Polaroid — deepened his integration of science into the photographic process, a pursuit he has continued across decades. He holds three patents and creates welded metal sculpture; these disciplines don’t sit beside his photography so much as run through it.
His work is held in the permanent collection of Columbia University’s Avery Library of Art and Architecture, and has been exhibited internationally at the James A. Michener Art Museum, the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, and the Gladstone Regional Art Gallery in Australia.