LEDA LUSS LUYKEN

Leda Luss-Luyken is a Greek/American conceptual Artist. She studied arts and architecture and started her career in Zurich and New York, strongly influenced by the works of Frank Gehry, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe and Zaha Hadid as well as Japanese garden architecture. Read her full story here.

Leda Luss-Luyken was educated at the Ecole d’Humanité in Switzerland and studied arts and architecture in Zurich, New York and Manchester. During that time she was particularly influenced by the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe and Richard Neutra as well as Japanese garden architecture.

She then began her professional career as an architectural designer and interior architect in New York, working intensively with designs by Charles Eames, Herman Miller and Eero Saarinen.

Drawing on this experience, Leda Luss Luyken has been working since 1983 as a conceptual artist in England, Germany and Greece. She received painting tutorials from Alfred de Vivanco, a pupil of Emil Nolde and is regularly being coached by Gisela Sellenriek (Academy of Fine Arts Berlin and Munich).

Figurative works 1985 to 1996

This is a body of work ranging from life drawing to expressive figurative paintings depicting personifications of the condition humaine. They were shown in two major solo shows in Amsterdam ^[1] and are documented in a monograph.^[2]

ModulArt 1996 to date

ModulArt is Leda Luss Luyken’s conceptual innovation, a “new way of motion in painting” (Denys Zacharopoulos).^[3] Luss Luyken has produced cycles of paintings using this innovative technique: Millennium (1996–2002); Greek Spirit (2003–2005); Genesis (2006–2008); 96% Dark Matter (2008–2010); Cosmos Sensual (2010–2011). Each of these cycles comprises approximately 20 large scale paintings measuring 180 : 180 cm or more.

In terms of contemporary art, ModulArt belongs to the category of conceptual art. It is not so much the finished painting but its openness to change and alterability that define the basic idea of ModulArt. The painter’s sujets are open to their de- and reconstruction into new, modulated images. To do so, the artist lets go of her work and allows for its further development by the viewer. The viewer thus becomes an active user of art. Modulated images open up new perspectives and insights on the subject, the artistic development of a piece of art remains in a state of flux. Such further development of a ModulArt painting is open-source and can be done any time in nearly unlimited variations. Luss Luyken’s ModulArt coincides and was developed independently during the same period of time with Stefano Vagnini’s ModulArt in the realm of musical composition. Both hold that the artist’s tools to creativity are virtually unlimited by way of ModulArt.

Luss-Luyken’s ModulArt was publicly exhibited in museums in Leipzig, Munich, Berlin and Weimar as well as in major solo shows in galleries in Amsterdam, Berlin, Zurich and Munich. Luss Luyken’s ModulArt is documented in a catalogue,^[4] a monograph,^[5] a collector’s catalogue ^[6] and three films.^[7]

RiceArt 2001 to date

RiceArt is multimedia work on transparent rice paper. Using this medium, Leda Luss Luyken has produced the following series of paintings: The Aphrodite Series (2001); The Nike Series (2003); The Garden of Eden Series (2004); The E-motions Series (2005).

Each of these consists of between 20 and 30 works, mostly on Indian or Chinese rice paper and in some cases using a combination on both. Many of the themes are drawn from ancient mythology and Luss Luyken transposes their essence into modernity.