Luke is a self-taught painter and mixed media artist originally from Cheyenne, Wyoming, now working out of Salt Lake City, Utah. Luke's surfaces often incorporate contemporary elements of abstraction and graphic design into the more traditional painterly styles more often associated with western and landscape painting. His subject matter ranges from mountains to deserts to clouds and sunsets, often reducing complex objects to flattened 2-dimensional shapes. Strong senses of depth in space and atmospheric perspective are common visual themes. His work has been exhibited at prominent regional art institutions, including the Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper, Wyoming, the Old West Museum in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the Springville Museum of Art in Springville, Utah, the Coors Western Art Show in Denver, Colorado, and at the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana. He has won several awards, including “Best Oil Painting” at the 2020 Western Spirit Art Show & Sale at Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Honorable Mention at the 2020 Annual Salon at Springville Art Museum in Springville, Utah, and the Fine Art Connoisseur Award at the 2022 Coors Western Art Show. His paintings have been featured in the pages of Western Art Collector magazine, Southwest Art Magazine and Big Sky Journal.
Artist statement:
My paintings are a celebration of the natural world, our planet, and of the immense beauty that surrounds us everywhere, from the deepest canyon to the clouds above and everything in between. Growing up on the dry, windswept plains of Wyoming instilled in me an appreciation for big skies, towering thunderstorms, open spaces, pronghorn antelope and golden eagles, and so much more. The sublime nature of the imposing landscapes and monumental weather of our plains, deserts, and mountains have always provided me with an opportunity to reflect on my own humanity and place in the world. The west offers an awesome variety of landscapes and environments unlike anywhere else in the world, and I am moved to try and see and interpret as much of it as I can, from the most iconic ancient geological landmarks to the most fleeting cloudscape captured above my head on a random day.
The scenes I paint are usually (but not always) based on real places from images captured with my camera, but the nature of the creative process from start to finish introduces a significant level of alteration and distortion so that the final image is not a copy of reality but merely a reflection or synthesis of it. My aesthetic language has roots in principles of minimalism, abstraction, and simplification. I have drawn inspiration from multiple historical and contemporary art movements and styles, with a stronger emphasis on many of the sub-genres of the broader Modernist art movement, such as Pop Art, Abstract Expressionism, Fauvism, and Primitivism/Cubism. I am also inspired by commercial graphic design and illustration and various forms of printmaking. I have always had an affinity for antiques and vintage materials like wood, leather, iron, clay, paper and posters. These high quality, long-lasting materials become more beautiful the more they show their age. I try to imbue that sense of durability, age, and timelessness in the finished surfaces of my paintings. I want them to be reminiscent of a Polaroid or old photograph - images that remind us of places we’ve experienced in the past that live on in our memories in a slightly hazy and imperfect form. My pieces have a prominently contemporary design coupled with an elegantly aged feeling to the surface quality, creating paintings that seem to bridge eras in time.
Galleries
Visions West Contemporary, Bozeman, Montana
Gallery Wild, Jackson, Wyoming and Santa Fe, New Mexico
CV
Clay Paper Scissors Gallery and Studio, solo show, Cheyenne, Wyoming, 2013
Wyoming Governor's Capitol Arts Exhibition, Cheyenne, Wyoming, February 2017
Cheyenne Old West Museum Western Spirit Art Show and Sale, Cheyenne, Wyoming, March 2017
Mystery Print Gallery/Clay Paper Scissors Gallery, “Rendezvous” juried group show, Pinedale and Cheyenne, Wyoming, June-July 2017
Clay Paper Scissors Gallery, "Landscapes and Hauntings of the West," solo show, Cheyenne, Wyoming, September-October 2017
Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum Western Spirit Art Show and Sale, Cheyenne, Wyoming, March-April 2018
Mystery Print Gallery/Clay Paper Scissors Gallery, "Rendezvous" juried group show, Pinedale and Cheyenne, Wyoming, June-July 2018
AVA Art Center, “Art Matters” juried group show/auction, Gillette, Wyoming, January 2019
Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum Western Spirit Art Show and Sale, Cheyenne, Wyoming, March-April 2019
Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, Wyoming, Bash & Ball Art Auction, September 2019
Gallery at the National Western Club (affiliate show to Coors Western Art Show), Denver, Colorado December 2019-January 2020
AVA Art Center, “Art Matters,” juried group show/auction, Gillette, Wyoming, January 2020
Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum Western Spirit Art Show, Cheyenne, Wyoming, March-April 2020
New Western Talent, Western Gallery, online juried exhibition, May 2020
Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, Wyoming, Bash & Ball Art Auction, August-September 2020
Springville Museum of Art, Springville, Utah, 96th Annual Salon, October 2020-January 2021
Coors Western Art Show, Denver, Colorado, December 2020-January 2021
Springville Museum of Art, Springville, Utah, 97th Annual Salon, April-July 2021
Western Gallery, The Colour and the Shape, duo show with Taylor Crisp, September-October 2021
Coors Western Art Show, Denver, Colorado, December 2021-January 2022
Springville Museum of Art, Springville, Utah, 98th Annual Salon, April-July 2022
Meyer Gallery, Park City, Utah, Solo Show, July 2022
Brinton Museum, Big Horn, Wyoming, Brinton 101 Small Works Show, November 2022
Coors Western Art Show, Denver, Colorado, January 2023
Arts Council of Big Sky, Big Sky, Montana, Auction for the Arts, March 2023
Springville Museum of Art, Springville, Utah, 99th Annual Salon, April-July 2023
Gallery Wild, Jackson, Wyoming, “Elemental” duo showcase with Aaron Hazel, May 2023
Supersonic Art, “Supersonic Horizons” online group show, August 2023
Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, Indiana, Quest for the West, September 2023
Contemporary Realism Now, curated group show, Gallery 1261, Denver, Colorado, January 2024
Awards
Fine Art Connoisseur Award - Coors Western Art Show and Sale, 2022
Best in show - AVA Art Center Art Auction, 2022
Honorable Mention, 96th Annual Salon, Springville Art Museum, 2020
Top Ten Finalist, New Western Talent, Western Gallery, 2020
“Best Oil Painting” award - Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum Western Spirit Show, 2020
Juror’s Top Scoring Work/Best in Show - Nicolaysen Art Museum Diamond Ball Auction, 2019
Publications and Reviews
Western Art Collector Magazine, feature article, May 2022 issue
Southwest Art Magazine, 2022 “Artists to Watch”
Big Sky Journal 2021 Arts Issue feature
https://www.nickthornburg.com/introspection-a-conversation-with-luke-anderson/
https://www.nickthornburg.com/a-grain-of-salt-featuring-luke-anderson/
https://www.wyofile.com/capitol-art-exhibition-displays-variety-paintings-drawings/
Other
In 2020, my painting “The Fool” was featured on the cover of a book of short stories about the American West titled Basilisco by contemporary Spanish author Jon Bilbao.
The Space Between, an interactive, multimedia, digital art exhibition in partnership with multimedia Wyoming-based artist Nick Thornburg. View The Space Between here.