Ep 64: Luke Sciberras

Author: Maria Stoljar
Published: Sun 24 Feb 2019
Episode Link: https://talkingwithpainters.com/2019/02/24/ep-64-luke-sciberras/

If you’ve ever met Luke Sciberras you’ll know he’s larger than life. Full of joie de vivre and good humour, he attacks life with gusto from his fabulous garden to his renowned cooking skills so it’s no surprise that this life force is also manifested through his art.

He’s known chiefly for his landscape paintings which are created with layers of glorious colour and a variety of marks. His drawings and plein air works have an immediacy which take us into his experience – whether it’s a boab tree a bird or a portrait. His art is always interpreted from life or from drawings made en plein air and brought back into the studio.

But paradoxically what is most important to him as a landscape painter is in fact people. Those who are the custodians or owners of the landscape are just as important to him as the landscape itself and he needs to connect with them in order to create his work.

He’s painted landscapes around the world from Europe to China but it’s in Australia that he’s spent most of his painting life – interpreting the landscapes of far northern Queensland to Bruny Island in Tasmania, from the Kimberley coast in Western Australia to the central desert areas where he’s created his art with the indigenous people of those lands.

He’s had 40 solo shows, his work has been hung in the Art Gallery of NSW, is contained in the collections of many regional galleries, in corporate and major private collections and his upcoming show of paintings from Western Australia’s Kimberley coast opens at King Street Gallery on William in Sydney in March 2019.

I spoke with Luke in historic Hill End about 4 hours from Sydney where he has his studio in the midst of a wonderful artists’ community.

To hear the interview press ‘play’ beneath the feature photo above.

See a short video of Luke in his studio below.

Upcoming show