ENCINITAS, CA - July 18, 2008 - Lux Art Institute, San Diego's most talked about interactive art destination, will welcome internationally recognized painter and sculptor Ray Smith, known for his vivid and surrealistic images, as the first artist-in-residence of the 08/09 season.

From September 12 - 27, Smith will be in residence at Lux and create a 6 ft. x 13 ft. oil painting on canvas from start to finish. Visitors can "see art happen" while he is in the studio and view his completed work through November 1, 2008.

Smith's work is highly figurative, often featuring dogs and other animals as anthropomorphic beings that hint at aspects of human nature. He bends, twists, and transplants his imagery, creating dreamlike distortions and juxtapositions.

His exhibit at Lux will include paintings imbued with a sense of his Mexican-American heritage. "From his roots in the new expressionism of the 1980s to his surreal vision of clock portraits, Ray Smith is a captivating artist to open Lux's second season," said Lux Director Reesey Shaw. "With a foot in Mexican culture, inherited from his mother's family, to his father's family's ranch in Texas, Smith's influences and experiences have resonance in San Diego as a border town with a bi-national culture. It's a thrill to welcome him to Lux."

Smith was born in Brownsville, Texas in 1959, on lands that his family had settled in the early 19th century. He studied fresco painting with traditional craftsmen in Mexico, attended art academies in Mexico and the United States, and settled in Mexico City. Since 1985, he has divided his time between New York and Cuernavaca, Mexico.

Smith's prodigious body of work has been widely exhibited in the United States and Mexico, as well as in Japan, Europe, and South America. He has exhibited in the 1989 Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City; the First Triennial of Drawings at the Joan Miro Foundation in Barcelona, Spain; and "Latin American Artists of the 20th Century," an exhibition that traveled from Seville, Spain to the Musee National d'Art Moderne at the Pompidou Center in Paris, France; the Kunsthalle, Cologne, Germany; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York City. During the last two decades, Smith has had 50 one-man exhibitions.

Smith's paintings are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art; Brooklyn Museum of Art; and Metropolitan Museum of Art, all in New York City; High Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Houston Museum of Contemporary Art, Texas; Miami Art Museum, Florida; Wurth Museum, Kunzelman, Germany; Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City; and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain.

About Lux Art Institute
Lux Art Institute, located in Encinitas, Calif., opened its doors to the public in November 2007 and is redefining the modern museum experience with its artist-in-residence program. Artists live and work on site, while producing a commissioned work of art.

Throughout the year, Lux invites significant regional, national, and international artists to participate in the Lux residency and encourages visitors from across the country to observe and engage with them. This one-of-a-kind institution invites visitors to not only "see art," but also to "see art happen."

Slated to be the first "green" (LEED certified) art museum in California and located alongside one of Southern California's remaining coastal wetlands, Lux's four-acre site overlooks the San Elijo Lagoon and is surrounded by a wildlife preserve that stretches to the Pacific Ocean. In an effort to seamlessly meld the conservation and restoration of art beyond the museum walls, an array of rare native plants blends naturally into the nearby preserve.

Santa Monica, California-based Renzo Zecchetto, AIA - whose other significant architectural projects include the award-winning Church of the Nativity in Fairbanks Ranch, Calif. and the Alusa Printing Company in Santiago, Chile - designed the two-story building to utilize energy-saving strategies such as the use of natural light and recycled materials to preserve resources for future generations.

Lux Hours: Thursday and Friday, 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. $10 for two visits.

For more information about Lux Art Institute, please visit www.luxartinstitute.org or call 760.436.6611