Yukos Drawing

„Making visibility the theme in his work, paintings by Michael Lukas do not implement the traditional model of critical reflection in that they reference and certify their own visibility. When this presumed identity is infiltrated by the opposite, it then becomes a fragile inner borderline between visibility and invisibility.” (1) The pictorial space is modulated by cloudy, meandering, gasiform, web-like, honeycombed, and frothy structures. Capturing and leading the viewer's gaze into a labyrinth of line and color, it reveals the infinite scope of our imagination. The viewer supposes to have found his or her bearings, but this certainty vanishes at the moment of obliteration inherent in the pictorial process. “Pictorial processes that otherwise only serve to engender visibility, redouble here in that they turn against themselves.” (2) Variable, mutually overlaying picture elements are placed upon the floor or propped up against a console, remaining a painterly installation in a space of probability. The simultaneous existence of events regarded from different perspectives is a central theme of the artist’s oeuvre. With respect to time, works by Michael Lukas always refer to the NOW, the moment they are viewed, reflecting the actual state of a poly-perspective gaze. It is a gaze which oscillates between microcosm and macrocosm, imparting information about our human existence in the urban and rural landscape we ourselves have shaped. Quotes taken from: Prof. Wolfgang Schäffner, Berlin