LUKE DEACON
Luke Deacon is an Australian contemporary artist based in Noosa, known for expressive coastal abstractions that merge observation with instinctive mark-making. His work captures the rhythm and energy of the landscape, translating familiar environments into refined, atmospheric visual experiences.
Luke Deacon
Background
Luke Deacon is an Australian painter based in the Noosa Hinterland, whose work is deeply informed by the coastal environment of the Sunshine Coast.
His practice is grounded in a daily engagement with the ocean—through surfing, observation, and painting—forming the basis of a sustained and personal visual language. Working between abstraction and landscape, his paintings explore the shifting energy, light, and rhythm of the coastline.
Deacon holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Deakin University, where he specialised in Painting under Australian Abstract Expressionist Bruce Vinall. He was awarded a scholarship to study Asian Art in Japan, where he explored Zen painting, calligraphy, ceramics, and traditional Japanese aesthetics—an influence that continues to inform the gesture and restraint within his work.
Alongside his studio practice, Deacon has an extensive background in art education, having taught in schools internationally as a qualified Art Teacher and Steiner/Waldorf educator.
Practice
Deacon’s work draws on the organic structures and atmospheres of the coastal landscape, translating lived experience into layered, painterly compositions.
His approach combines the immediacy of plein air observation with a more intuitive, studio-based process. Gestural mark-making, tonal shifts, and textured surfaces are used to build works that move between representation and abstraction—capturing not a fixed view, but the sensation and memory of place.
There is a quiet dialogue in the work between control and release, influenced in part by Zen aesthetics, where simplicity, rhythm, and presence become central to the image.
Exhibitions
2026
Affordable Art Fair Brisbane
2025
‘Tide Forms’, Solo exhibition ( sell-out), Noosa Art Gallery
Noosa Open Studios 2025
Du Rietz Art Prize Finalist, Gympie Regional Gallery
Local Contemporary Art Prize Finalist, Caloundra Regional Gallery
Ocean and Ochre, Noosa Art Gallery, Noosaville, QLD
Noosa Nouveau, Noosa Art Gallery, Noosaville, QLD
2024
Morning Rays, Public Art Installation, Moreton Bay Regional Council
Eclectica, Cooroy Butter Factory Arts Centre
Pretty in Pink, Studio One Noosa
Noosa Open Studios 2024
Wallace House, Noosa Open Studios
2018
Beachmere Art Show – Winner (2D)
2013
Lift Gallery, Maleny
2003–2006
Creation Infinity Gallery, Geelong, VIC
2002
‘Oribe’, Kansai Gaidai University Gallery, Japan
2001
‘Sumi-e’, Kansai Gaidai University Gallery, Japan
2000
‘Feedback Loop’, Installation, Old Gaol, Warrnambool
1999
Deakin University Graduate Exhibition, Warrnambool Art Gallery
‘Remanents and Reflections ’, Solo Exhibition, Deakin University Gallery