Striking Gold

Conceptual Fine Artist Lina Iris Viktor Uses a Sacred Precious Metal in Her Paintings as an Intentional Storytelling Device

- Layla Leiman

Working in a limited colour palette of black, white, blue and 24-karat gold, Lina Iris Viktor’s figurative and geometric compositions combine elements of the mythical, archaic, cosmic and divine. Her artworks are like rare artefacts excavated from ancient Egyptian tombs set before us to unlock what Viktor describes as ‘our residual DNA – information passed down through generations that is dormant within us until something ignites it’.

From a young age, Viktor immersed herself in a wide range of thought streams. Born to Liberian parents living in exile in the UK, she grew up between the UK and the US, including a stint in Johannesburg in her teens when her parents were based in the city. She moved to New York in 2003 and has enjoyed a rapid rise to prominence within the fine art industry and broader popular culture ever since. Her art, Viktor says, employs an ‘intuitive feeling language that speaks beyond this dimension’.