Graham Lucks
Mediums: Sculpture
Studio: 520 Hamilton Studios 2 & 3
Graham Lucks creates abstract and kinetic sculptures of steel, copper, stainless steel and tungsten. These pieces explore the unpredictability of movement, incorporating chance into the complicated design working beneath the surface. Graham’s sculptures are the result of his artistic sensibility combined with his dedication to craftsmanship and mechanical ingenuity.
Graham graduated from Swarthmore College in 1998 with an engineering degree. While at Swarthmore he had the opportunity to learn from ceramist Syd Carpenter, painter Randall Exon, painter Celia Reisman, and sculptor Brian Meunier.
After graduation Graham moved back to Massachusetts and began working for Michio Ihara at his Studio in Concord, assisting in fabricating, engineering, installing, and maintaining large-scale public sculptures across the United States and around the globe. With Michio’s support and guidance Graham began developing his unique style of kinetic sculpture. Graham worked closely with Michio for close to 20 years and continues to help install and maintain Michio’s sculptures.
In 2010 Graham married Elaine Mehalakes, an art curator from New York who was working at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College. In 2015 Graham and Elaine moved from Massachusetts to the Lehigh Valley, where Graham set up his own sculpture studio and Elaine took a position as the head curator at the Allentown Art Museum.
Artist statement
You are spinning, you have always been spinning, and, long after there is a you, what remains will be spinning. Spinning is such a constant feature of our lives that we don’t even perceive the fact that we are spinning. Describing it can simultaneously sound incredibly fast and painfully slow. One revolution per day, one revolution per year, one revolution every 250 million years. At the Equator you are traveling 1000 miles per hour, the speed of the Earth around the Sun is 67,000 mph, and the solar system moves through the Milky Way at a speed of 515,000 mph.
My sculptures spin because having a reminder of the facts of our existence somehow seems necessary. My sculptures are earnest; they resist offense, banality, and sensationalism. They are about play, meditation, the physical world, expectation, and wonder. My hope is that they get you to stop and be present, if just for a few seconds.
Artist Gallery
