Leah Lux

Hi, I'm Leah Lux, an emerging artist from Melbourne, Australia.

I have been given an amazing opportunity: I have been selected for a month long residency in Can Serrat, near Barcelona, Spain. For the whole month of February, I will have a room, studio, access to a print studio, and the amazing Catalan views will be a great inspiration.

Can Serrat is an international artists retreat near Barcelona, in a town called El Bruc, and it is situated in the Monserrat national park. The rustic building allows artists, writers, musicians and movie makers to develop their ideas in a communal atmosphere.

Recently, I have been very interested in decorative surface treatments such as wallpaper, mosaic tiles, fabric upholstery, and have loved interpreting them in my artworks.

I have chosen to take a little extra time to explore these themes in my travels.

Prior to Spain, I will spend a week in London researching the Arts and Crafts movement and visiting buildings and museums featuring William Morris designs. While in Barcelona it is the work of Antoni Gaudi that is most inspiring, but I hope to visit the south of Spain where the Moorish designs are a feature. After Spain, I plan to spend a week exploring France and the Art Nouveau movement.

I hope to absorb all the art and inspiration of these three countries to create artworks including paintings, monoprints, linoprints, and photographs.

Now I just have to get there!

A major part of this project will be postcards. On previous travels I learned the art of Japanese Picture Postcards: "e-tegami". These are quickly painted watercolour postcards that express an inspiring moment, place or object and are intended to be posted. So I will be painting at least a couple of these each day.


I want to send a postcard to every one of my supporters as a thank you. I hope to be able to borrow these postcards once back in Australia, to display them as a part of my exhibition, along with new paintings, prints and photographs.

I have already been working on some Gaudi inspired artworks (below). These three are studies of the tile mosaics in Parc Guell, Barcelona. These are lino prints hand coloured with watercolours.



Can Serrat offers this opportunity to a limited number of applicants each year, and I am lucky to be chosen. With your help I will be able to use this opportunity to maximum benefit. As part of this residency, I will be able to contribute an artwork to their international collection.

It will be so inspirational to be surrounded by other artists from around the world, and the rich culture and countryside of Catalan, Spain. I hope to learn new skills and share some of my own. I am hoping that there will be potential for cross-cultural collaborations or exchanges, and maybe even exhibitions.

While having a whole month at Can Serrat to fully concentrate on my artwork, this will provide plenty of time to develop and produce a new body of work. There will definitely be a store of inspirational sketches and photos for new artworks for many months to come.

I am excited by the prospects of bringing my interpretations of the Catalan and Spanish landscapes to exhibit here in Melbourne. I look forward to people's responses and hope that I can help to enrich their multicultural experiences as much as my own experiences will be enriched by my journey.

This residency is a half-stipend, so I only need to come up with half of the normal costs for the month in Can Serrat, and I have already paid a deposit.

I have also paid for my flight tickets, but there will be other travel costs and insurance.

Although the stipend covers some of my food, there will be costs for the other meals.

I will need to purchase some art supplies, but I plan to keep these to a minimum.

In summary:

Accommodation: $1000
Travel Costs: $ 900
Food Costs: $ 300
Art Supplies: $ 300

In total: $2500

Your generosity in supporting this project would be greatly appreciated, but I don't want any handouts. I would like you to see this as an opportunity to pre-purchase artworks that are created in direct response to my travels.

Travelling alone is going to be a challenge, but with advance planning I am confident that everything will run well. In fact, I think I'm going to enjoy it!

But the biggest risk is not raising sufficient funds to reach my goal.