Last week, Lux Art Institute unveiled its roster of five artists selected for their 2014 residency program.
If you haven’t heard of or visited Lux then I encourage you to plan a trip up the coast to check out this incredibly smart and progressively modern museum purposefully nestled into an eco-hillside in Encinitas. The Lux art experience is quite different from most of the other museums in town, redefining, as their mission statement points out, the museum experience in order to make art more accessible and personally meaningful. “At Lux, you don’t just see finished works of art; you see the artistic process firsthand, engaging with internationally recognized artists in a working studio environment.”
Lux Art Institute doesn’t show the work of local artists nor does it simply schedule pre-packaged exhibitions that originated elsewhere. Lux Art Institute is all about the residency program, bringing to our region a variety of artists from all over the world. Each artist arrives with a creative enterprise in mind, they live in the museum, they make art in the museum and once their work is finished they show their work in the museum. I went for the first time recently and was delighted by the modern building (with an exciting expansion planned for the fall), the clean white space with charming views and by the current artist in residence, painter Melissa Miller who was happily working away right in the middle of the gallery.
We all have our own tastes but the residents who I will be anticipating next season include Marcus Kenney, Jarmo Makila and Melora Kuhn. Kuhn’s portraits examine issues of identity, history and personal versus public spheres. Makila hails from Finland and his large scale paintings depict ritualistic scenes of boys playing cruel games (he’ll fit right in!). Finally, Marcus Kenney’s work looks to be both humorous and macabre if his blinged out deer’s head is anything to go by.
If you’d rather not wait for 2014 (and I don’t blame you) go to luxartinstitute.org to find out more about the remaining residents for this year; pick one and then stop by and say hello.
Lux is open for visits Thursday and Friday, 1-5 p.m. and Saturday 11 a.m.-5 p.m. It is located at 1550 S. El Camino Real, Encinitas, 92024. Admission is free for members and $5 for non-members. Each ticket is good for two visits during the same residency. Call 760-436-6611 for more information.
