Artist Lucas Novak — Lucas Novak

Much of my artwork is about imperfection, transition, and fluidity. Things overlap, fragment and dissolve in a balance of masculinity and femininity. The subjects may be based on images I’ve seen or things I’ve experienced, or references to history, but they aren’t an illustration of a story or anything concrete. This painting, Gatekeeper II, for example, is not simply a picture of a person and lion or circus scene, even though the combination of the person wearing a clown-like outfit might conjure the idea of a circus. Circuses are strange though, and somewhat mysterious.

I choose subjects that I find interesting or ambiguous. And they interest me because in that state of unknowing, I can bend them to represent an experience or a fear or something else that cannot be explained with words but that touch the core of my being. Somewhere in the artwork is me working out the biggest mystery of all: the meaning of life.