With a deep fondness for eccentric men and women, Anna Lukashevsky wanders in the vicinity of her Hadar studio in Haifa, "hunting" types on the street: people who fit into clear ethnic and social characteristics, but something unique in their personality deviates from the "type" and captures her gaze. When she encounters an interesting figure, she makes a quick drawing on the spot and then invites that person to her studio; there, during several sessions, while conversing with the sitter, she paints and extracts a multi-dimensional individual from the ethnic-social category.
Lukashevsky was born in Vilnius; she immigrated to Israel in 1997, and has been working in Haifa since 2011. From the relatively foreign status of an immigrant, she observes the Haifa space as an anthropologist. With an original gaze peppered with humor, she analyzes the urban sphere, depicting the broad demographic range making up Haifa's multiculturalism. Her paintings are social portraits: they portray individuals, unique human phenomena of genetics, emotions, and ideas; at the same time, they are portraits of class, of life circumstances forced on the objects of her paintings, which ascribed them to social and economic groups. Lukashevsky's work is painting from observation, in the full sense of the word, because she observes people in all their dimensions: the visual, social, and psychological.
The production of the accompanying catalogue was made possible through the generous support of Ann and Dr. Ari Rosenblatt, Los Angeles; Rivka Saker, Israel; Zila and Giora Yaron, Caesarea; Israel Lottery Council of Culture and Arts.
