"The gallery in Garzón is intimate while having two long vantage points from the front entrance. For this reason I want to show two types of work, 'Thread' paintings and 'Bubble' paintings. I want to use the space to make the viewer aware of distance and time. A 'Thread' painting from a distance gives no information of what it physically is or how it was made, from close up it reveals everything. 'Bubble' paintings saturate the eye with color and or contrast causing a completely different optic event, using perception over time."

Emil Lukas

Piero Atchugarry Gallery is pleased to announce for the the first time in Pueblo Garzón, The Distance of Time by Emil Lukas, an immersive solo exhibition of ‘Thread’ and ‘Bubble’ paintings that potentialize the space as its own personality; simultaneously intimate and prolific.

“The work of Emil Lukas (Pittsburgh, 1964) can be regarded as a sustained attempt at challenging time and charming our gaze as a way of posing questions rather than offering answers. Therefore, we will tackle the issue of the ability and the power of this human production of becoming something so special. What can art tell us? Or, perhaps, we may go even further and risk an answer regarding the relationship between art and life. 

"The pieces comprised in the series entitled “Thread Paintings” were created by stretching out thousands of meters of colored threads which were placed by hand over a loom system that is the frame of the piece itself. Lukas creates different patterns: grids conformed by thousands of lines that radiate from an aired center toward a denser perimeter, where the central negative space becomes a center that emits light along with vertical specters that seem to vibrate when the eye pierces them. His work with various densities produces a powerful optical illusion of volume when beheld from a distance. Energetic and fascinating, these pieces are the threshold across which there is a space where light, color and retina meet, in a sort of optical emotion the artist communicates to the beholder. 

Emil Lukas’ work addresses universal concerns. His pieces offer a sensitive look at the world through an accumulation of experiences. The internal power of his art dazzles with a beauty that is not an end in itself, but a means to glimpse at issues that transcend us. Devoid of pompous speeches, his sensitivity and honesty put us in an essentially human and universal place.”

Martin Craciun (Montevideo, 1980) 

Exhibition Catalog