For the past thirty years, Horst Lukas has explored painting, first on his own, then through the guidance of the School of Fine Arts in Kassel, Germany and figurative workshops in Tuscany, Italy. Originally interested in the social commentary of Dalí and Magritte, Lukas embarked on a surrealist path that detoured briefly into a naturalistic phase before his studies in Kassel turned his attention more permanently to abstract expressionism. Painting with oils, Lukas builds layers with a combination of palette knife and brush, coaxing his colors into a flashy interchange of bursts and streaks.
Though naturalism is no longer a focus for Lukas, the natural world frequently enters his work in the form of a bird, a rock, or raging water. As a dedicated conservationist, he feels an obligation to address vital issues through his art, communicating with abstraction and color play. “My whole life as a critical human being was influenced by political and socially critical issues such as environmental degradation and destructive processes in human interaction from loneliness to depression and violence,” Lukas says. “I found ways to express these issues in my artwork.”
