Night view of the painting with the interior lights turned on.
Detail of the painting at night.
Another detail of the painting at night.
This video shows how the painting changes from day to night.
Daylight view of the painting.
Portrait Commissions Available
Portrait commissions are available. No modeling experience needed, and no need to sit for long periods of time because reference photos suffice! Contact Lucas Novak for more details.
48” x 36”, oil and acrylic on canvas, 2021
Here is an example of a figure painting completed in January, 2021. The balance between beauty, vulnerability, and mystery is a timeless feeling, like finding a wild flower beside a waterfall on a cold mountain. A quiet peacefulness with a trace of sadness. It is not something people experience every day, but it is something people remember. What I enjoyed about painting this subject was the way she crossed her arms and feet, with downcast eyes and tilted head, holding her body in a manner that suggested vulnerability or sadness. She sat naturally and gracefully as the sheet flowed over her like water or cream.
Her pose also evokes mystery because the viewer wants to see her eyes and full figure which is blocked only by the loose flowing sheet. What is hidden just as important as what is revealed. Like an enigma.
Detail of face.
Detail of hand and sheet.
Angled detail of Tell Us Where The World Went. From the angled view, the gold paint becomes more visible.
Philosophy Of The Eternal And Universal
How to create art that is timeless? I think it must represent the eternal and universal. In my endless mission to create more meaningful work that transcends cultures and borders, I went back to a few philosophers for guidance.
Although it appears that Arthur Schopenhauer was a cynical sexist asshole, he had some interesting thoughts about art:
The deliverance of knowledge from servitude to the will, the forgetting of the individual self and its material interest, the elevation of the mind to the will-less contemplation of truth, is the function of art.
A work of art is successful in proportion as it suggests the Platonic Idea, or universal, of the group to which a represented object belongs. The portrait of a man must aim, therefore, not at photographic fidelity, but at exposing, as far as possible, through one figure, some essential or universal quality of man.
For example, tragedy may take an esthetic value, by delivering us from the strife of the individual will, and enabling us to see our suffering in a larger view. Art alleviates the ills of life by showing us the eternal and universal behind the transitory and the individual.
The title of this painting is Tell Us Where The World Went. Over the summer of 2017, I camped in and just outside of Yosemite with some friends. I took a photo of them and used it as a reference for this painting. Only a few days after we left, a huge fire broke out and destroyed the area and thousands of acres and homes. The year 2017 is going to prove devastating with regard to wildfires.
Tell Us Where The World Went, 36.5" x 48", oil and acrylic on canvas over panel, 2017.
Note: The title of this piece comes from a line in The Road by Cormac McCarthy, p. 166.
Detail: Fossil I (Intermission XII)
Furthering the Intermission series
As in all of my artwork, the process of creating this piece relied on a leap of faith. I didn't have a vision of its finished appearance but instead worked in stages of the unknown -- not knowing exactly where I was going while relying on my experience and skills and having faith in my abilities of creation.
Similar to many of my other recent paintings, prior to painting in acrylic and oil, I first formed the three-dimensional surface with clay. As the clay dried, it cracked naturally, creating an effect that resembles fossilized forms, a reminder of our own vulnerability in this world.
This painting furthers my ongoing Abstract Intermission series: In the battles of life, there is loss, persistence, and deliverance. Some of these episodes, more dramatic than others, serve as pillars or beacons in our own timelines. Then there are the lulls or periods of recovery from and preparation for past and future battles -- the necessary intermissions in between that often feel nameless but impact us nevertheless, sometimes in more important ways than the memorable events of our pasts. Sometimes we meander along our amorphous, cracked, or abstract thoughts. Our plans for the future are never definite and our memories constantly change. Nothing lasts forever. Like Tyler Durden says in Fight Club: Even the Mona Lisa's falling apart.
Fossil I (Intermission XII), 36" x 48", oil, acrylic, clay, epoxy resin, wood panel, 2016