Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Laks moved frequently with his family throughout childhood.  As
an artist, he spent time living and painting in Barcelona, Spain, and Cerillos, New
Mexico, a ghost town outside of Santa Fe.  The two cities served as bookends for
the developing artist, not only in his study of light and color, but for the lasting
impressions they made of social and emotional extremes: the bustling city vs. the
ghost town.
Laks studied at the San Francisco Art Institute, working closely with Bruce
McGaw and Jeremy Morgan.  In 2005, armed with his new BFA, Laks founded
AudioCinema, a 20,000 sq. foot production facility in Portland, Oregon. There he
built studio spaces for himself and over 200 local artists of different disciplines. The
space houses a complete music production studio, speaking to Laks’ other
passion—music.  
While working in Oregon, Laks used AudioCinema to broadcast messages of
positivity by painting single word suggestions atop the building on a large
billboard.  This piece, The “Word” Sign, faces the heavily trafficked Hawthorne
Bridge and has since become a part of the Portland skyline.
Working as a non-representational painter in mixed media, Laks has evolved
into an industry of himself. From his initial experiments with improvised and
unconventional applications of paint and materials, the artist has, over 10 years,
pioneered and mastered innovations that enable him to control cumbersome
equipment. Laks creates modular works, blasting with industrial grade tools onto
birch panels. His process is unique, creating layer after layer of media, sanding in
between each plane, resulting in large-scale and even colossal, highly theatrical
works that are smooth yet rich with texture.  
He uses the term, “galactic infinity” to describe his work, making reference to
the continuous, seemingly endless movement that spreads across multiple
panels creating intimate moments of space and simultaneously the
magnanimous total experience of a galaxy. Inspired by French philosopher
Gilles Delueze’s Rhizome Theory of Interconnectivity, Laks has shed all narrative
content to revel in evolutions of mark-making and deconstruction. Conveying the
vastness of macro/micro dimensional space, “galactic infinity” is a fitting
description.
Laks’ works are part of numerous private collections and have shown
internationally in galleries, public spaces, and private exhibitions. ilan Laks now
lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter. He is currently a member of The
Los Angeles Art Association.