Canadian-born painter Attila Richard Lukacs's large-scale paintings are steeped in art-historical references and homoeroticism. Evoking mythological rites of passage, with oddly shifting perspectives, Lukacs's recent paintings find inspiration in Persian and Indian miniatures and the studied order of Renaissance composition. They depict imaginary wild boys and strange man-beasts - and constitute what the artist calls 'Myths about my garden' - yet the lush, Elysian settings of these paintings belie their political subtext. The painting He's dead, I'm alive, I'm yours, 2000, 115 by 82 inches, references the AIDS epidemic; Fairy tales can come true, 2000, 88 by 92 inches, provides a narrative of the violence that has been directed against young men who are gay.

Attila Richard Lukacs was born in Alberta, Canada, in 1962. After graduating from the Emily Carr College of Art and Design, Vancouver, Lukacs moved to Berlin and remained for ten years. He currently works and resides in New York.