Luke Townsend is an artist based in Kansas working in the mediums of photography and Tibetan calligraphy. Inspired by the fundamental fact that all beings seek happiness and wish to avoid suffering, Luke’s work plays on the interludes between the human condition and our relationships with the conditions which inform our realities. 

He began his career in journalism working for his local newspaper, The Manhattan Mercury, and moved back to New York City at 23 to work with K-State Alumnus, Robert Clark, on over 8 stories for National Geographic. After a decade in New York, Luke returned to Kansas, motivated by the instruction of Archaya Lama Gursam Rinpoche, to explore our conscious experience through a collaboration of photographs and ink in order to benefit countless sentient beings. 

Luke has multiple works in the permanent collection of the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, commissioned works hanging in the Morris Family Multicultural Student Center, Staley School of Leadership Studies, and a permanent 13x35 ft. photographic mural installation in the ceiling of the DOW Center for Multicultural and Community Studies in Hale Library at Kansas State University.

Luke is a freelance contributor for ZUMA Press  with work published in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, ABC News, The New Territory, Wisdom Publications, Kansas Leadership Center, Macy’s, and newspapers across the globe. 

He is a member in good standing with the National Press Photographers Association, serves on the board for the Friends of the Beach Museum of Art, and formerly served on the Arts and Humanities Advisory Board for the City of Manhattan, KS. 

"Our world is an interesting reality, so I photograph it."

Available for assignments, art commissions, and image licensing