Lux Art Institute begins seventh season of resident artists

If you go

■ What:

Lux Art Institute

■ Where:

1550 South El Camino Real, Encinitas

■ Matthew Cusick:

In studio September-Oct. 5; on exhibit though Oct. 26.

■ Melora Kuhn:

In studio Nov. 5-Dec. 8; on exhibit through Dec. 28.

■ Hours:

1-5 p.m. Thursday-Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday

■ Admission:

$5

■ Contact:

(760) 436-6611

■ Website:

luxartinstitute.org

By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt

Lux Art Institute, closed for the month of August, enters its seventh season welcoming artists from around the world to spend a month in residence creating new work and interacting with visitors of all ages.

The 2013-14 season opened Sept. 5 with

Matthew Cusick

, a native New Yorker, currently based in Texas, who makes haunting collages out of fragments of maps inlaid in acrylic.

“Through a process of cutting up and reassembling fragments of maps from different places and times, I am attempting a more complete representation of an existence,” he writes on his website. In honor of his first long-term stay near the Pacific, he will create a large-scale ocean collage.

Nov. 5 will bring

Melora Kuhn

, a painter who draws her themes from history and myth. Born in Boston and educated at the Art Institute of Chicago and the School of Lorenzo di Medici in Florence, Italy, she lives in Brooklyn, and her work reveals a world where classical and contemporary elements coexist. The piece she creates at Lux will be a response to the history of the American West, and the extermination of the buffalo.

Three more resident artists will round out the season in 2014: Multimedia artist

Marcus Kenney

, from Savannah, Ga., is known for his “reclaimed taxidermy,” a backhand homage to the family of hunters he grew up in, and his whimsically macabre Southern Gothic pieces. At Lux, he will be working on his version of Bruegel’s Tower of Babel paintings. (Jan. 9-Feb. 8, 2014)

Jarmo Makila

, an artist from Finland who explores disturbing memories of his boyhood experiences, will create a series of clay sculptures of boys, one for each day of his stay that Lux is open to the public. (March 20-April 12, 2014)

Beverly Penn

, from Austin, Texas, finds inspiration in nature, interpreting delicate flora in durable bronze. She will collect and cast some of San Diego’s native plants, a number of which can be found in Lux’s own native gardens. (June 5-July 5, 2014)

After the artists complete their residence, their work will remain on view for another month.

Lux is in the midst of a major expansion project, the jewel of its seventh season. The new Education Pavilion, a grand indoor-outdoor community art-and-culture center that has been under construction since May, is due to open this fall, just in time for the gala on Oct. 5.