Medium: public art (metal, bronze, ceramic, stone), sculpture, drawing, painting, collage/mixed media, printmaking, educational outreach
Artist Statement
Dimitar Lukanov was born on February 23, 1969 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. An American citizen since 2003, he studied art on Helene David-Weill scholarship in Paris and New York receiving his MFA from Columbia University in 1997. In 1995, he was awarded a full Skowhegan Fellowship, jointly by Columbia and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine. He is the recipient of numerous grants including: Pollack Krasner Foundation, David-Weill funding, Soros Open Society, ArtCultureStudio Grant, Geneva, Switzerland, Medal for Sculpture, Fundacion Sebastian, First International Sculpture Symposium, Mexico and Invited Artist International Art Fair, Shanghai and Moscow, ExpressArte, Mexico. He is member of the Chilean Association of Painters and Sculptors. In 2001, In 2006, Dimitar Lukanov was selected among the annual Top 100 alumni of all times of the 90-year-old Parsons The New School School of Design. Dimitar Lukanov work has garnered critical attention in numerous publications such as Art-in-America, Wall Street Journal, FRAME, New York Daily News, Archpaper, Artiholics, Artnet, Broadway World, Interior Design, ELLE Décor, Standartnews, Euronews, Associated Press among ohers.
In 2012, Dimitar Lukanov was commissioned the inception, creation and execution of New York’s JFK International Airport Terminal 4 major sculpture commission, which inaugurated June 2014. The installation of the completed ensemble of three monumental sculptures – Voice of Tomorrow, History of Time and Outside Time – marked an important moment in the major redevelopment of Terminal 4 as it continues its expansion to accommodate over 20 million passengers per year. As of date, 35, 000 passengers use Terminal 4 a day and 15% of all international travel arriving into the United States comes via JFK Terminal 4. The three sculptures are situated at the most high-trafficked areas of the Terminal. The massive – yet 90-percent airborne – steel/aluminum Outside Time is the cerebral, ethereal flight of matter dissolved within the air. An engineering achievement with its 30-foot airborne span, the sculpture is an ephemeral, transparent membrane between travelers clearing TSA checkpoints and taxing aircraft, JFK’s control tower and the sky. With its brilliant color, Voice of Tomorrow is situated at the key intersection at the end of the central retail hall and the start of the boarding gates walkway. Instantly popular with passengers, the 14-foot sculpture resembles a pulsating heart, the emotional embrace to all who are about to board. A filigree, ceramic wonder, the third, and lastly installed sculpture, the 11-foot sculpture History of Time, is comprised by 70 fired-clay mini-sculptures that I created individually by hand, over a period of eight months.