Chris Levine

Chris Levine is a Canadian artist, living and working in the UK, primarily in the field of light art.

Levine is best known for Lightness of Being, his unconventional portrait of Queen Elizabeth II with her eyes closed. Levine explained that the portrait came about as a "happy accident". He was commissioned to create a holographic portrait of the Queen, using a high-resolution digital camera which moved along a rail taking 200 images over eight seconds. The queen was required to sit still for 8 seconds at a time and between the passes she closed her eyes to rest. Levine was struck by the unusual beauty of her meditative state and took the image, which turned out to be iconic.