Timur Lukas
Timur Lukas’ works capture the supernatural essence of childhood memory.
A distinctive scene provides inspiration to the artist who uses the act of memory to transform the view into a world anew. Timur Lukas is looking out through his grandmother’s window when he was a child: the imprinted memory of the window framed inside by vases overlooking a forest behind the house. Lukas transforms these memories to create immersive worlds on the canvas, and much like the worlds within the vases that form the central figure of many of his paintings, we are drawn into their scenes through the artist’s bold use of colour and expressive composition, seen across both smaller and large-format works.
It has been said that things we are fond of grow in size as we store them in our memories, and as we return to them there, they grow ever larger. So, when we are reunited, or when we return to a place of fondness, we are shocked by a sudden apparition of smallness. This ability of the memory to distort and reconfigure, along its own planes and scales is reflected boldly through Timur Lukas’ works. The vases dominate the canvas in many of his works, imprinting themselves as on the artist’s mind as vessels of memory containing moods, bodies, stories and landscapes. In some works, they congregate like a rabble of characters, the bodies interlacing as one loses their belly within the arm of another.
Insight into Timur Lukas' studio.
Vases are bodies. They share a neck, a throat, a belly, shoulders, arms, muscles, legs and feet.
Indeed, for Lukas, vases and bodies are synonymous. They share a neck, a throat, a belly, shoulders, arms, muscles, legs and feet. And still, vases remain among the oldest discovered cultural products. From the victory cup to the funerial urn, their use and purpose are as versatile as their forms. These vases remain imprinted on the canvas and on the artist’s mind as vessels of memory, containing moods, characters, stories and landscapes.
The figures float like an afterimage over the lens of memory; the vases, the windows and the trees overlapping and blurring across foreground, middle and background.
Lukas takes an instinctive approach to his works, using his brush freely and combining powerful and positive colours to unfold the narrative of the scene. Working primarily in oil together with lacquer, the individual forms reveal themselves through the full brush strokes and find their place in the ensemble. The figures float like an afterimage over the lens of memory; the vases, the windows and the trees overlapping and blurring across foreground, middle and background. Lukas labours methodically to build depth into the canvas but works spontaneously and swiftly. In some layers the paint is applied lightly, just gracing the primed surface allowing the background through, whilst a bold neighbour is silhouetted alongside, its form traced and highlighted, leaving its three-dimensionality behind and drawing out its fleshy character, stalked by a shadow.
One need only lose themselves within the depths of these vessels to hear their stories and join the artist, to play in the haze of memory.
Text by Constance Chester
I DON'T PAINT A PICTURE FOREVER, BUT IT TAKES ME FOREVER TO PAINT A PICTURE.
Biography Timur Lukas
born 1986 in Konstanz, Germany
Education
2017 Master Scholar («Meisterschüler») of Prof. Gregor Hildebrandt
since 2011 Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Germany / Painting and Graphics, Class Prof. Gregor Hildebrandt (since 2015), Class Prof. Matthias Dornfeld (2014-2015), Class Prof. Anke Doberauer (2011-2014)
Exhibitions (selection)
2020
Timur Lukas & Laurentius Sauer - Due Two Fries, MEWO Kunsthalle, Memmingen, Germany
Unite! Limbo Forest., Kunstverein Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany
Der Wald vor Omas Fenster, Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, Germany
2019
Meze Evi, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, Germany
#Favortites, Ambacher Contemporary, Munich, Germany
INNER CIRCLE, Köşk, Munich, Germany
2018
Jahresgaben, Kunstverein München, Munich, Germany
2x Förg, Kunstraum, Munich, Germany
Aufbruch - Meisterschüler von Gregor Hilderandt, Wurlitzer Collection, Berlin, Germany
akkord, Galerie Britta von Rettberg, Munich, Germany
2017
Benefiz Auktion, Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, Germany
(On) The Radar, Waldburger Wouters, Brussels, Germany
Frei nach Adorno, super+Centercourt, Munich, Germany
Scholarships
LfA catalog funding
2017/2018 Studio Support Program (Atelierförderprogramm) Free State of Bavaria
2014 Anniversary Scholarship Foundation (Jubiläums-Stipendium-Stiftung) of the City of Munich
Publications
Der Wald vor Omas Fenster by Distanz Publishing (ISBN 978-3-95476-367-2)
https://www.distanz.de/buecher/timur-lukas/der-wald-vor-omas-fenster
Image Credits: Portrait on artists overview page by Thomas Weidenhaupt
Timur Lukas' studio.
Works by Timur Lukas
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Portrait einer Vase 14
2021 / Oil on canvas / 120 x 90 cm / 47.2 x 35.4 in
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Zeichnung einer Vase 08
2021 / Mixed media on paper / 40 x 29.7 cm / 15.7 x 11.7 in
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Zeichnung einer Vase 16
2021 / Mixed media on paper / 40 x 29.7 cm / 15.7 x 11.7 in
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Ich dachte an Griechenland
2021 / Oil on canvas / 120 x 90 cm / 47.2 x 35.4 in
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Säulenheilige (Column Saints)
2020 / Color pencil on paper / 49 x 29.7 cm / 19.3 x 11.7 in (framed)
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Heracles 6
2020 / Color pencil on paper / 45 x 36.5 cm / 17.7 x 14.4 in (framed)
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Heracles 4
2020 / Color pencil on paper / 45 x 36.5 cm / 17.7 x 14.4 in (framed)
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sold
Drei auf der Lichtung
2020 / Oil, lacquer on canvas / 120 x 90 cm / 47.2 x 35.4 in
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Vase und Ast
2020 / Oil on canvas / 80 x 60 cm / 31.5 x 23.6 in
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Morgens im Schatten
2020 / Oil on canvas / 120 x 90 cm / 47.2 x 35.4 in
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Kater duften, Blüten grauen
2020 / Oil on canvas / 120 x 90 cm / 47.2 x 35.4 in
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Vasen im Wald
2020 / Oil, lacquer on canvas / 210 x 280 cm / 82.7 x 110.2 in
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Von draußen geht der Blick nach innen
2020 / Oil on canvas / 100 x 75 cm / 39.4 x 29.5 in
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Alltag
2020 / Oil on canvas / 80 x 60 cm / 31.5 x 23.6 in
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Vandalen. Nachts!
2020 / Oil, lacquer on canvas / 180 x 135 cm / 70.9 x 53.1 in
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Julianes Arme in Grün
2020 / Oil, lacquer on canvas / 135 x 180 cm / 53.1 x 70.9 in