Lucas Seaward is an Alberta-based visual artist whose paintings and mixed-media works explore the relationship between the natural world, industrial development and the materials that connect them.
For nearly two decades, bitumen has been central to his practice. Working with a substance inseparable from Alberta’s landscape and identity, Seaward creates images in which the medium carries as much meaning as the subject. Animals and natural forms emerge through a material associated with energy, economic prosperity, resource extraction and environmental destruction. These competing associations become part of the work, connecting the subjects depicted with the forces that shape and threaten their surroundings.
His background in photography and design informs his attention to composition, contrast and detail. Across his practice, an interest in the natural world is joined by a willingness to work with unconventional materials—and to question how their origins influence what we see.
