|
Indepth Arts News:
"Emil Lukas: Moment of Process"
2001-09-30 until 2001-12-15
MASS MoCA
North Adams, MA,
USA United States of America
The fall exhibition in Kidspace at MASS MoCA,
Moment of Process, will feature two- and three-dimensional works by Emil
Lukas. Lukas works with a variety of organic and inorganic materials,
including plants, insects, plaster, canvas, paint, and found objects, to
produce abstract paintings, prints, drawings, and sculptures.
For Lukas, the processes through which he creates his work and the inherent
properties of the materials he uses are central to his art practice. By
pulling a canvas taut so that paint drips and puddles in the resulting
indentations, or sewing potato chips to paper and allowing the oil to seep
through and stain the surface, Lukas sets processes into motion and then
enables, as he describes it, marks to make themselves. Lukas's
experiments with materials and processes are informed by phenomena in the
natural world. For example, in his Larva Painting, larvae coated with paint
crawled across the surface of a large canvas, leaving a dense network of
interlacing trails. Here Lukas gives control of the work to the materials
themselves, thus wedding the art-making process to the life cycles of the
insects.
Lukas also works with different printmaking techniques, and two series of
recent prints will be on view in the Kidspace exhibition. Press and Vent is
a series of 31 prints made in collaboration with students at Lafayette
College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Based on his work with Lafayette students
on this series, Lukas has designed an original art project for Kidspace in
which all visitors will be able to participate and make their own pressings.
Moment of Process also features three new silkscreen prints that Lukas made
at the Durham Press in Durham, Pennsylvania, as well as one large painting
and three sculptures made of plaster, wood, glass, and other organic
materials.
Born in Pittsburgh, Lukas received a bachelor's of fine arts degree in 1986
from Edinboro University in Pennsylvania. He spent eight years in New York
and Europe before settling down in Stockertown, Pennsylvania, located near
Lafayette College in Easton.
In the past year Lukas has had one-person exhibitions in New York, Cologne,
Paris, and San Francisco. He is represented by Gorney Bravin + Lee, New
York, NY; Studio la Cittą, Verona, Italy; Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA;
Galerie Alain Le Gaillard, Paris, France; and Renate Schroeder, Cologne,
Germany. Since 1985 Lukas has participated in group exhibitions in museums
and galleries around the world.
Related Links:
| | 
|
