Emil Lukas | Assembly Minor & Major

Emil Lukas and Durham Press have completed a new portfolio of woodblock and relief prints, Assembly Minor & Major. The two prints emerged from Lukas's continued explorations of perception and form, namely in his recent Lens series, curved assemblages of hollow tubes that the artist oriented to visually converge on a single point. The shape and effect of these three-dimensional works-and the impression of the space through and around the tubes-shift with the viewer's position relative to the piece and light sources.

Assembly Minor & Major similarly focus on how we sense and understand our surroundings, harkening to centuries-old investigations of perspective and illusion and recalling modern graphic movements such as Op art. Each depicts almost mirrored configurations of fifty-eight clustered circles that were printed using cross sections of aluminum tubes. The circles in Major are farther apart, however, and the cluster's overall form is slightly enlarged compared to that of Minor. Evoking the Lens' striking use of one-point perspective, the rough grain of woodblocks-which were individually inserted into the aluminum pieces for Major-seems to proceed toward a horizon. By contrast, Minor features only crisp, flattened areas of black and white. 

Through the relationship of their distinctive textures and subtle compositional differences, Minor and Major together emulate an encounter with one of Lukas's Lens assemblages. The prints offer two perspectives, recto and verso, of a single form. Major represents the vantage point from which only a narrow portion of the world beyond the angled tubes is visible. Minor shows the opposite position, where, though looking through the same form, hardly anything is obstructed. Whether in three dimensions or in two, Lukas's dynamic, illusive works simultaneously highlight the limitations and potential of our perception. 

Assembly Minor & Major is printed on Somerset Satin paper in an edition of twelve. Each print measures 28 x 27 5/8 inches. This portfolio, as well as other works by Emil Lukas, is available directly through Durham Press. For more information, please contact us at sales@durhampress.com.