ARTIST STATEMENT

Life is full of fun and interesting moments but we rarely catch more than a glimpse of them. Through my artwork, I have discovered a way to seek out the most elusive and marvelous of those curiosities. If they can be caught, I’ll grab hold and squeeze out their juices into fine art lemonade.

Luke Dangler – Oil Painter

I have never used AI in the development of my paintings, but I can understand how they might be mistakenly assumed to be artificial creations. In the near future it will be impossible to distinguish between art created by humans and images generated by robots. In a world where AI tools will soon saturate all aspects of our daily lives, my artwork will always remain a reflection of my individuality.

BIOGRAPHY

PART I: PRACTICE

Luke grew up in a small town in central New York. He was mostly surrounded by farmland, but always a short drive from Blockbuster Video. He developed an interest in art and music at a young age, and became obsessed with conquering his instruments. He would spend countless hours practicing guitar technique and drawing skills, and in doing so learned how repetition of any task could lead to improvement. Eventually he would attend Nazareth College in Rochester to pursue an education in studio art. He continued to refine his skills and technical proficiency, drawing and painting many visually impressive portraits and bowls of fruit and things like that. Upon graduation he was commissioned by the school to produce a large mural-like painting, which he spent way too much time working on in pursuit of perfection.

PART II: DISCOVERY

After college Luke dabbled in both art and music. He had taken some music classes at school, but with questionable performance as he couldn’t read sheet music due to the fact that he only really cared about heavy metal guitar. He played in several local rock bands with the goal of gaining performance experience. After a time, this pursuit (along with a series of lucky circumstances and happenings) led to a string of North American tours where Luke would serve as a guitar player for a number of traveling acts. He described this adventure as both fun and enlightening (and miserable, but rewarding). Sharing one’s work with an audience is the ultimate experience for an artist – and the feedback from performance provided Luke an important insight: Technical proficiency and command of your craft is necessary, but only up to the point of serving the greater goal of communicating emotion to the audience. This is a notion that was completely lost on Luke up until this moment. It turns out that excessive technical self indulgence can not only be annoying, but in direct conflict with the essence of art as he would come to know it.

PART III: EVOLUTION

With newfound appreciation for the ‘vibes’ delivered by art and music, Luke decided to focus his energy on painting. He now had a direction to follow, and that was exciting. Finally he might be able to paint something a little less boring than a bowl of fruit. He didn’t have any idea what the next art project would look like, but he knew how he wanted it to make people feel. This served as a guideline that would allow him to start developing his artistic voice and begin to communicate authentically for the first time. An artistic evolutionary process began as Luke attempted to depart from his roots of hyper-realism and into the realm of concept and expression. This process has been slow, but with each new painting, he feels that more and more of the exciting potential of art is revealed. He now uses the pursuit of creativity as an excuse to spend time discovering hidden and interesting aspects of life and the universe, and paint on canvas as a medium with which to share them.