ENCINITAS, CA — (January 4, 2010) — Lux Art Institute, San Diego’s first LEED certified interactive art destination, will welcome New York City-based sculptor Robert Lobe as the next resident artist of the 2009/2010 Season.

Inspired by the shapes, materials, and textures found in the wild, Lobe depicts rocks and trees in shimmering, hollow forms using heat-treated, hammered aluminum. The signature process is an adaptation of repoussé, an ancient technique in which metal is hammered to create designs or shapes.

From March 27 to April 24, Lobe will be living and working at Lux, while creating an aluminum tree sculpture in repoussé. Visitors can “see art happen” while he is in-studio and view his exhibit, featuring numerous examples of these metal works, through May 22, 2010.

Lobe encases trees and rocks in sheets of aluminum, using mallets and a pneumatic air compressor to stretch and tighten the metal. Through the force of repetitive blows from the hammers, Lobe alters the structure of the aluminum until it conforms snugly to the texture of the rock or tree, exposing its interior volume. The new surface replicates and abstracts the contours and enhances the play of light and shadow on the aluminum skin.

“I have always found it romantic, the idea of Bob Lobe getting in his truck packed with tools and sheet metal in the midst of Manhattan and then driving to some remote section of forest in upstate New York that he has rented as an outdoor studio,” says Lux Director Reesey Shaw. “It is here in the cold, wet, windy woods that Bob finds the trees and rocks that become the patterns for his metal skins. So it is indeed a piece of the forest that becomes part of our own urban landscape when, in the form of repoussé shell, it is reclaimed as sculpture.”

In October 2008, Lux installed a sculpture by Lobe on the grounds of its five-acre site. Mother Maple portrays the trunk of a tree, a branch, and a large boulder. Created by Lobe in 1988, it measures an impressive 120” high by 123” wide by 108” deep and weighs 500 pounds. Complementing Bucket with Abstraction, a smaller sculpture by Lobe in the Lux administrative office, Mother Maple was installed near the top of Lux’s granite trail and is on loan to the Institute through Fall 2010.

Lobe’s work has been commissioned and exhibited in galleries and museums across the country, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Whitney Museum of American Art, both in New York City; National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Cleveland Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

Raised in Cleveland and educated at Oberlin College and Hunter College, Lobe has received a variety of awards and prizes including two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Creative Artists Public Service Award, an Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Grant, and a Pollack-Krasner Foundation Award.

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.