Luke Wagner

Luke Wagner is a Hobart-based artist whose coastal views of real and imagined landscapes are painted with an ethereality. White, as a colour, has a volume and radiance that can make sky, water and earth fuse. This rings true for Luke Wagner’s epic coastal views where the searing light bleaches coastal rocks and creates a glassy reflection on the ocean. Describing a world of isolation, Wagner’s current work is borne out of his residency to Tasman Island, a small island national park off the south coast of Tasmania. The Island is a small plateau flanked by 300-metre-high sea cliffs where the only access is via helicopter. Themes of the abandoned, of the lost or the forgotten are vivid in Wagner’s pieces. Exhuming the memories of a distant world, Wagner’s minimal palette of charcoal, ashen and frosted white depict a vastness. A self-taught painter, Wagner employs oil paints mixed with bees wax then applied to linen with broad painting knives. Working with a poetic and intuitive confidence, Wagner strives for universal images that cross-cultural specificity. Wagner has exhibited in Hobart, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and been a finalist in prestigious prizes such as Hadley’s Art Prize, Tattersall’s Art Prize, Mosman, Lloyd Rees and the Glover Art Prize. Subsequently his work in held in many well regarded public and private collections.