Sammy Lutaya

Artist statement From time immemorial, I’ve been in love with art in every way, shape, and form. As Nicki Giovani once said,' 'art is not to cultivate the mind, art is for the cultivated mind''...mine then was fertile ground!! My name is Sammy Lutaya, a Kenyan Artist currently living and working in Barcelona, Spain. I’ve been creating, drawing, painting, and etching as a professional artist for the past 23 years. My work reflects ideas, fantasies, and typical experiences depicted within natural settings, sometimes mixing realism with abstract. I'm inspired to discover my own visual language at any given time and the process and the journey that it takes. My latest body of works going by the theme " Bond with nature" are inspired by my interaction with my new environment. I in the gothic quarters for afew months of my arival to Barcelona and later at Can Masdeu and Tibidabo in Serra de Collserola slightly outside Barcelona. Nature became my muse, i drew alot of inspiration from my environment, it reminded me of the jungles in Kenyan. .. the wild boars, birds and the forests The pieces are a rhythmic , gestural and intuitive response to my immediate surroundings which was mainly the unique mix of intricate gothic architectural features at the gothic quarters and the more natural settings in the hills of Serra de Collserola. The artworks reflects my mood and feelings about nature expressed on canvas.. they are my poems on canvas!! My painting process is in three stages, first texturing the canvas and most of these were done in the woods, I would leave the canvas overnight and kept the leaves and sticks that felt on the canvas as part of the artwork. I would then paint with acrylics paint on site and eventually move the canvas to the studio where I would paint again using oil paints as the final stage. My vibrant colour use is inspired by tropical sunsets and sunrise from Kenya where i grew up from childhood.