The inaugural season of artist residencies at the Lux Art Institute in Encinitas has featured excellent exhibitions that have yielded some stellar new work by Tomás Rivas, Astrid Preston, Julie Heffernan and Daniel Wheeler. In fact, Wheeler will complete his residency this week (he'll be on-site during gallery hours from Thursday through Saturday) and his show continues until Aug. 2.

A second season begins Sept. 12, with a residency by Ray Smith, a well-known artist who divides his time between New York and Cuernavaca, Mexico. And the Lux has announced a total of five residencies that carry its programming through August 2009.

Smith, who will be in the Lux's studio through Sept. 27, makes jarringly surreal paintings of animals and people, often infused with mystical and symbolic intent. He also renders warped watches and clocks, working from photographs that are digitally manipulated. Smith's exhibition, which will remain on view through Nov. 1, will sample his different series and he'll complete a 5-by-7-foot painting at the Lux.

Alison Moritsugu, based in New York, designed one of the valise-style works for the Lux's innovative educational program. Now, she'll be exhibiting a range of her meticulously executed landscapes, generally painted on slices of logs rather than on canvases. Moritsugu will be creating work on-site between Nov. 8 and Dec. 6; her show will continue though Jan. 3, 2009.

Jolynn Krystosek, who also resides in New York, will be working here from Jan. 10 through Jan. 31. She plans to show three discrete groups of work: floral relief carvings in wax, paper cutouts she creates on-site and drawings of exotic birds. Her show will remain on view through March 18.

Skies are a prime subject for painter Victoria Adams, who makes her home on Vashon Island in Puget Sound in Washington. She'll focus on local landscape and skies during her stay, scheduled for March 26 through April 4. The show is through May 20.

Scottish painter Derrick Guild will be here from May 28 through June 20. Guild, who now lives on the South Pacific island of Ascension, reworks a genre common to European artists of the 16th to the 19th centuries: the kitchen still life. His show closes Aug. 1, 2009.