Attila Richard Lukács (born 1962) is a Canadian artist.
Lukács gained international attention via his E-werk series—a collection of very large figure paintings that he created in the 1980s and 1990s, while living in Berlin.
The paintings featured nude and semi-nude skinheads, who were depicted in heroic and classical poses in chiaroscuro, reminiscent of Renaissance art. The paintings were considered provocative due to their depictions of homosexuality, sadomasochism, and fascistic symbolism.
Biography
Lukács was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and grew up in Calgary. He is the second of three sons born to Joseph and Helen Lukács.
In 1984, Lukács took part in Futura Bold, a joint exhibition with fellow Emily Carr attendees Angela Grossmann, Graham Gillmore and Derek Root. The following year the four artists' work, along with four other artists, was displayed at the Vancouver Art Gallery under the name Young Romantics. During this time he became interested in the skinhead subculture and used skinheads as models for his paintings, eventually socializing with and dressing like them. Lukács did not find the success that he had hoped for on the New York art scene and suffered from a worsening addiction to methamphetamine. He left New York for Maui in 2001 to recover. While there, much of his work focused on paintings of flowers.
Lukács returned to Canada in late 2002. Drawing Out the Demons, a biographical documentary film about the artist was released in 2004. The documentary opens in the summer of 2001 and documents Lukács' journey from New York to addiction recovery in Maui, then on to Calgary and back to Vancouver.
Artistic style
Lukács' work of the 1980s and 1990s featured very large canvasses with thick applications of oil paint, along with other textural media such as tar, feathers, and gold leaf.
His 1999 series, Arbor Vitae, featured a collection of black-on-white paintings of a single tree from a variety of perspectives.
In the 2010s, Lukács began producing more abstract paintings as well as sculptural and installation artworks.
American art historian Jonathan David Katz has referred to Lukács as "one of the world's greatest living artists." Lukács commented on this descriptor in a 1988 interview with Canadian Art magazine: Lukács said in a 2016 interview with the Vancouver Courier: