ilan Laks

I am an artist, art teacher, and a singer/songwriter. 

I am currently making and teaching art and music in my private studios, as well as middle and high school art at Pacific Crest here in SE Portland. You can see my art around Portland in boutiques, galleries, and street fairs, and see me performing my original music at local venues and street fairs. I am working on a new album in my recording studio. I am also working on my brand Skeleton Band, Assembling and selling electric guitars and basses.

I received my BFA from the legendary, now gone, San Francisco Art Institute, Diego Rivera’s school in San Francisco. There I studied painting with Bruce McGaw, Dewey Crumpler, and Jeremy Morgan, and film with the great George Kuchar.

My paintings have been represented by many galleries including, The New Mark Gallery in San Francisco, The Alexander Salazar Gallery in San Diego, and Gallerie Sues Terre in Holland, and the Orange County Center For Contemporary Art, as well as many murals and public works.

I have founded several art organizations:

AudioCinema (Portland, Oregon)

Skeleton Band (Portland Oregon)

Robertson Art Space (Los Angeles), Hemline Records (San Francisco), 

San Francisco Painters Club (SF), 

ilan Laks Studio (Culver City, CA), 

And been a member of many others incl.:

Creative Capacity Commission (Portland)

Downtown Arts District Association (LA)

Los Angeles Art Association 

I have written and produced 3 albums as singer songwriter and guitarist:

Chrome Echo

Casper Maccabee

La Causa

I was the bass player for San Francisco Band Turn Me On Dead Man, and the drummer for Portland band Darlins.

I had the opportunity to write, record, and perform with Jackson Brown, Clyde Stubblefield, and Jane Weiden, as part of the Steel Bridge Song Festival, and my song Refresh is song #3 on the Steel Bridge album.

In the fifteen years I was the founder and director of the AudioCinema production facility, (2005-2020), under the Hawthorne Bridge in Portland, I had had the opportunity to work with some of my favorite musicians and artists like Cat Power, Ghost Face Killah, Pavement, Bad Brains, Modest Mouse, Maria Abromovic, Dan Gilsdorf, Samantha Wall, Spoon, The Indigo Girls, The Shins, The Decemberists,  Pink Martini, Napalm Beach, Storm Large, and so many more. In San Francisco I had the honor to work with, Carlos Guitarlos, George Clinton, John Lee Hooker Junior, Linda Perry, and the Broun Fellinis, among so many others.