Meet the Artist
Lucas Schwartz
Sculpture
Portland-based artist, musician, and designer Lucas Schwartz collates and distills techniques of songwriting, architecture, graphic design, industrial design, precision machining, and textile design into one astoundingly linear and diverse channel of form and expression. Informed via these many avenues, each series of works ranges widely in material, but maintains a cohesive running narrative. A meta-expression, building upon itself and arising as if by its own self-actualization. With surprising diversity, his works act as an active fulcrum between art and design, the figurative and abstract, the conceptual and emotional, abiding a profound curiosity for the still moment between the commonplace and the transcendent.
Over 25 years of development have informed artist and designer Lucas Schwartz’ creative process. Each design in his collection of carved 3-dimensional panels requires hundreds of hours of refinement, prototyping and development to create extraordinary sculptural “prints”. Inspired by astronomy, physics, biology, and nature, each individual carving is hand painted using the highest caliber pigments and finishes- a collaboration between artist, subject, light, and material. He owns a workshop gallery known as The Bureau, and has current exhibitions at Scanlon Gallery in Ketchikan, AK, Crema and Red E in Portland, OR, and has recently installed a civic sculpture in Tehaleh, WA.
Materials and tools used include: a mixed medium of carved wood panels and expressive painting. His process weaves machine tooling with the irreplaceable craft of handwork, allowing for forms and details that neither technique could achieve alone. Archival finishes are applied both before and after carving, embracing the wood’s natural character and ensuring longevity, even in harsh environments.