Luke Cornish

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Luke Cornish (born 1979 in Canberra, Australia) is an Australian stencil artist known as E.L.K. He creates by hand, cutting stencils from recycled acetate, sometimes with more than 30 layers and hundreds of colors.

In 2012 he became the first stencil artist to be a Archibald Prize finalist. He won the Holding Redlich People’s Choice Award at the Archibald Prize Salon des Refusés in 2017 and was a Churchill Fellow in 2013. He was also a finalist in the Sulman Prize in 2013 and the Metro Art Prize in 2011. He won the Australian Stencil Art Prize in 2010 and the Most Popular Stencil at the Melbourne Stencil Festival in 2008.

Cornish’s Archibald final work in 2012, a portrait of Father Bob Maguire, used more than 30 layers and was influenced by his relationship with his grandfather. His short film Me- We, about making that portrait, was shortlisted at the Tropfest Awards Film Festival in 2012.

He has exhibited across Australia and in major international cities including Paris, London, Rome, Los Angeles and Amsterdam. Growing up in Canberra, he worked as a sign writer and landscape designer before taking up stencil art in the early 2000s.

All of his work is made by hand. Cornish has traveled to Syria, Lebanon and Iran. In 2017 he co-founded the charity For Syria’s Children and organized an urban art auction to raise funds for Syrian children.