Lukas Luzius Leichtle

born 1995 in Aachen. Lukas Luzius Leichtle's paintings press the human body into extreme proximity. His motifs — a hand probing the surface of a back, a fingernail rising from soft flesh, fingers curling into an orifice, a skin fold opening like an incision — treat skin not as an enclosure but as a threshold, the porous border where self and world bleed into one another. He builds his surfaces in successive transparent glazes, abrading them with sandpaper, electric nail files, and sponges until the primed linen shows through and the painting becomes a kind of skin itself: tactile, worn, an archive of pressure and contact. Colour follows touch rather than appearance, flushing where the body has been pressed. The brushstroke is erased; what remains is a surface that asks the eye to graze rather than to grasp. “I’m looking for moments where it breaks open.” – Lukas Luzius Leichtle In 2023, the Neuer Aachener Kunstverein (NAK) presented his first institutional solo exhibition, All Thoughts No Prayers. In 2025, his solo exhibition Eindringling at CCA Berlin, curated by Fabian Schöneich, was reviewed in Frieze. Schwellen, opened at Jan Kaps in 2026, as his first solo exhibition with the gallery.