Additional Images

Provenance:

Galerie Daniel, Montreal

Note:

Stephen Lack is a Canadian painter and actor currently based in New York City. As an actor, he is most recognizable for his lead role in David Cronenberg’s film “Scanners” (1981) and later “Dead Ringers” (1988). He has also had small cameos in many independent Canadian and American films. It is evident that Lack has an inclination for creative self-expression.

As a painter Stephen Lack is known for his finely developed art practice which presents modern American cultural objects and landscapes as subjects of vivid and intensely coloured paintings. Modern relationships, urban violence, and politics are all themes found in his work. Through this portrayal of objects in a stark, recognizable way, Lack is largely reacting against the development and reception of minimalism and conceptual art in the 1960s and 1970s. Using a bright, varying palette and bold outlining strokes, he recalls a time when art was most simply about visual aesthetics and independent self-expression. It is in his automobile series, where many works resemble Van Gogh’s Daimler that this simplistic and American style is mastered.

Lack received his BA from McGill University (Montréal) in 1967. He then received his MFA from the renowned Instituto Allende (San Miguel de Allende, Mexico) in 1969. He has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1987 and 1993, and the Canada Council for the Arts in 1991. While originally from Montréal, Lack now works out of New York City, where he lives with his family.