SHERYL LUXENBURG
www.sherylluxenburg.com
Born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, Sheryl Luxenburg received two graduate degrees in clinical psychology and spent two decades working as a clinical psychologist. She specialized in family systems and trauma and worked as an expert witness in trauma and sexual abuse cases for the court system. After being diagnosed with an autoimmune illness, she decided to leave the profession. In the previous decades, she had always explored her passion for painting and attended art school at Concordia University, Keene State College and Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, formerly known as The Banff Centre.
In order to celebrate a milestone birthday, she decided to paint a triptych, each panel 6 by 3 feet, called
To Everything There Is A Season. The monumental work is dedicated to her husband, who has been a major support to her. The project is about survivorship, transformational growth, recovery and healing. It is a celebration of overcoming life-threatening illness, and most importantly, about raising awareness for the #MeToo and the Time’s Up movements. The three billboards on the cement wall represents the past and the central figure standing life-size represents survivorship.
Luxenburg’s style and techniques are closely associated with photorealism and hyperrealism. She is most known for creating a flattened depiction of space, as opposed to typical realism in which there is 360-degree contouring and shading. In a flattened depiction of space, the contouring ends more abruptly at 180 degrees with lighter values toward the rear. The artist’s work revolves around people or objects that experience some type of distress, such as confusion, dread, conflict, anger or numbness. Emotions related to feeling overwhelmed, useless or abandoned also play prominent roles within her compositions. She describes her figures interacting with water as an expression of a fatigued emotional state. Luxenburg says she had an epiphany about 20 years ago when she realized that her subject matter was a direct projection of the psychological struggles she was having in her life.