Peter Lankas
Peter Lankas (born: Czechoslovakia 1957) is a mid-career artist with a practice based in Newcastle, NSW. Lankas trained at Alexander Mackie now known as UNSW Art & Design and graduated in 1980. Very much a painter’s painter, Peter has taught both painting and drawing at Newcastle Art School for many years. Lankas’s work is held in the collection of the Newcastle City Art Gallery and in many important private collections both in Australia and overseas.
A passionate artist with a love of painting, particularly the post-impressionists Vuillard and Bonnard. Peter prefers to make his own paint, employing the centuries old method of using a linseed oil, pigment, chalk and egg white emulsion based paint. This is highly unusual for an artist who likes to take his practice out of the studio and into the “en plein air” as tubed paint very much facilitated Impressionism, however for various reasons Lankas cannot use tubed paint. His hand mixed medium giving his colours vibrance that are unique to his work. Peter likes to capture the everyday that surrounds us in suburban Australia and the stories he can weave into these images, People picnicking underneath a Caltex petrol sign, referring to Manet’s “Dejeuneur sur l’herbe”
Peter Lankas has been a finalist in the 2016 Calleen Art Award, 2017 Paddington Art Prize and the 2018 Kilgour Prize.
Peter Lankas talks to John Clif about his paintings that were exhibited at Kaleidoscope Gallery, Waterloo in 2012. The exhibition, “Illuminance”, ran from 19th April to 1st May with painter Elric Ringstad sharing this exhibition with Peter.
