Tucson 1966

Sven Lukin made this painting, Tucson, with bright colors and swooping forms, it looks like it could be made of wood. I am struck by how these colours meet, the cadmium orange of the background, the buttery yellow forms, lined with a cool light blue. It’s a simple palette, but look at how the colors vibrate against each other and creates a strange illusion of depth. The shapes themselves are so playful. The texture of the colors feels flat, almost printed, but the rounded forms give the piece a feeling of volume and depth. It’s like a drawing trying to be a sculpture, and a sculpture trying to be a drawing. Lukin was very interested in industrial materials, so this piece reminds me of some of the work of artists like John Chamberlain. Like Chamberlain, Lukin seems to embrace the idea of art as a process, an ongoing conversation, rather than a fixed statement. The tension between 2D and 3D space asks us to question what we think we are seeing, leaving us in a space of constant questioning.