Emil Lukas: One to the Other

New York Gallery

Emil Lukas evidences the importance of process in labor-intensive pieces derived from the artist’s experiments in unusual combinations of objects and materials. Byproducts of his studio practice and the natural environment around his home in rural Pennsylvania become source material for and subjects of works that are both painting and sculpture.

Philosophically, these works balance form and idea. Overlapping colors, contrasting tonal ranges, the repetition of universal shapes and structures, and the dynamic of positive and negative space create the formal foundations in which the artist explores new ideas and processes. Wide-ranging materials, including paper coffee cups used to mix paint, bottle caps, plaster casts of objects and body parts, organic residue, string, glass, and bubble wrap are part of the archeology and vocabulary of each piece. The residual evidence of process makes each work a history of its own making.