About Lutz Scherneck

I think that the first time I considered myself an artist was toward the end of my first year of study at Syracuse University.

The freshman year classes were the same for all who attended Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. Throughout High School I excelled in math and science, but I also loved art. It seemed sensible that a course of study that would combine these three fields would be to my liking, but instead I fell in love with the work of French Impressionist painters and contemporary American artists, Pollock, Rothko, Hofmann and Avery. Their influence showed in the art work I would create. The mystery of the creative process was very seductive. Switching majors, I graduated in 1976 from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting.

Visual artistic expression needs to be a visual experience.

Artists who depend on a story to compose a painting do not understand the full majesty of the visual experience. Picasso said, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” Modernism in art needs to build off of the art of the past.

Even the most abstract shapes have their origins in nature. Patterns and relationships find their way onto my canvases. Full artistic expression requires more than tonal rendering and visual illusions. Lines, colors, textures and forms work together and in opposition to produce certain sensations.

I paint with the expectation of creating a work of art.

Beginning with some chosen constraints, the painting will lead me to its completion. All along the journey, each step changes the work but not its ultimate goal. When it is finally shown, displayed as art and viewed as art, it is art.