ENCINITAS, CA — (April 2, 2010) — Lux Art Institute, San Diego’s first LEED certified interactive art destination, will welcome Berlin-based painter Sati Zech as the final resident artist of the 2009/2010 Season.

Although technically referred to as paintings, the works in Zech’s vibrant series titled Bollenarbeit – a reference to the vineyard-covered hills and mountains found in the region in Germany where Zech was born – float between paintings, drawings and sculptures. While the sumptuous displays of thick, bright red mounds of paint applied on naked strips of linen are visually arresting, it is the process Zech employs to create these cloth fields of intense color that is most remarkable.

From June 5 to 26, Zech will be residing at Lux while creating several bollen works, some of them large-scale. Visitors can “see art happen” while she is in-studio and view her exhibit, featuring numerous examples of these vivid canvases through July 31, 2010.

After tearing apart sheets of cloth, Zech assembles the strips – unraveled edges and all – in horizontal and vertical rows. Sometimes overlapping them, she joins the rows with white archival glue, bits of puttylike plaster and thread and applies viscous domes and dots of red paint across the cloth’s surface. The result evokes a uniquely tattered collage, its crimson fingerprint-like shapes spreading like a landscape across the sheet’s ragged lines and seams.

While the acts of layering, tearing, gluing and sewing produce works that are reminiscent of domestic handicraft, and the scarlet mounds of paint hint at historically ritualistic mark-making, Zech’s dynamic creations defy category.

“It is the termite mounds of Australia and the rolling hills of Karlsruhe at the foot of the Black Forest that influence Sati Zech’s rounded forms,” said Lux Director Reesey Shaw. “Like sticky heaps of sweets, these sensual forms repeat endlessly in the waxy glow of pigment until, like hieroglyphs, they cover her canvas in code. We look forward to having Sati bring the magic of their making to California.”

Zech has won various scholarships and awards, most recently the Franz Joseph Speigler Prize in 2009. She also participated in a Yaddo Residency in April 2009. Zech made her stateside debut in 2008 at Howard Scott Gallery in New York City and has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows, as well as art fairs, in cities worldwide, such as Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Salzburg, Zurich and Bilbao since 1985.

About Lux Art Institute

Lux Art Institute, located in Encinitas, Calif., is redefining the museum experience with the region’s only artist-in-residence program that invites artists to live and work on site, while producing a commissioned work of art – start to finish. This one-of-a-kind institution welcomes visitors to not only “see art,” but also to “see art happen.”

Throughout each year, Lux hosts several significant regional, national and international artists who participate in its residency program. Visitors from across the country are able to participate in exclusive liaison-led tours, providing intimate access to the artist-in-residence, the artist’s exhibition and the museum’s permanent collection of indoor and outdoor art. Lux also offers a wide range of innovative programming for all ages.

The recipient of the San Diego Architectural Foundation’s top design award, the Grand Orchid, and the first art museum in California awarded LEED certification for new construction, Lux is located alongside one of Southern California’s few remaining coastal wetlands. The five-acre site also overlooks the San Elijo Lagoon and is surrounded by a wildlife preserve that stretches to the Pacific Ocean.

Through its Phase II Capital Campaign, Lux plans to add more than 25,000 square feet of galleries and classrooms. Once completed, the new building will also feature a hilltop plaza and a series of gardens climbing between the galleries and the Artist Pavilion.

Lux Art Institute is located at 1550 South El Camino Real in Encinitas, Calif. Hours are Thursday and Friday, 1 to 5 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and cost is $10 for two visits. For more information about donations, memberships, volunteer opportunities and more, visit http://www.luxartinstitute.org or call 760-436-6611.