Emily Luks

Peruvian born Canadian artist Emily Luks received her Master of Fine Arts Degree in 1989, shortly before immigrating to Canada. Emily’s passion for her art has led her to work, throughout her career, in a range of different medias including oils, gouache, graphite pencil and photography.

Since her first exhibition in Peru in 1968, Emily’s compositions have been displayed in many international group and solo shows. Specifically, her work has been exhibited in a variety of Canadian institutions. In their May 2006 issue, the American Orchid Society published Emily’s work, which has now found homes in different public, corporate and private collections around the world; in Argentina, Canada, France, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Peru, USA and Switzerland.

Emily is the founding member of Origins, a group that specializes in botanical and floral painting, whose aim is to improve the standards and raise awareness of botanical art in all its forms. Origins held its first joint exhibition in 1999, with over 75 works. Origins exhibited in a special collection at the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum). As a community charity effort, Origins painted a life size moose in the botanical mode in the Toronto outdoor Moose Art Exhibition of 1999, which was subsequently sold for over $10,000.

Emily has also served as Vice-Chair of The Botanical Artists of Canada. She leads Creativity & Drawing workshops in Peru and Canada, which have been extremely successful.

She worked on a project with Crayola to donate products for the Nyumbani Children’s Home in Nairobi, Kenya; this is an orphanage for children who are HIV positive and have no living relatives.

2008, a year of change. Emily started a project in Peru in The community of Tinki, managing to get women weavers into an association to be independent, developing new products for the challenging market. A two story workshop was built for weaving dying of the yarns with an open a store to the public.

Today she continues her work in Peru: Building a Community Library and Meeting Centre, for the children of Ccoñamuro – Cusco and surrounding villages.

Artist Statement

Art in my life is a space to create, a mystery to evoke, a constant process. Drawing is pure creativity, a pleasure I cannot refuse myself.