Upward Slope

How Danny Larsen transitioned from professional snowboarder to refined painter of his Scandinavian homeland

WORDS: CARU SANDERS

Danny Larsen’s atmospheric neopointillist paintings evoke the folkloric forests, fauna and fjords of his homeland. Much like his paintings, Danny Larsen himself is otherworldly and mystical. It’s as if his time spent with Mother Nature has informed a kind of mystic vision that enables him to photographically represent the woodlands, open waters, mists, and atmospheric morning frosts of his Norwegian homeland in pen and paint.

Larsen’s process is so precise, so painstaking and disciplined, that it seems at odds with the renegade, daredevil spirit of the first half of his career. If painting is his serene and meditative second act, it’s the very antithesis of the first, which involved careering down mountains as a professional snowboarder.

Larsen’s career crossroads came early. As a teen, he grew up in Norway and his path could have led either way. He lived next to a ski slope and started boarding in 1994, the life of professional snowboarder his ultimate boyhood dream. Yet his promise also showed in the school art room.

His pivotal moment came after graduating from high school, when he discovered he could make a living as a snowboarder and opted for the thrill of the slopes. Sponsorship opportunities came in thick and fast, propelling him towards some of the world’s most deathdefying runs. Meanwhile, his artistic leanings came in handy when it came to delivering the kind of cool factor that his sponsors wanted – his looks made him the number one published snowboarder in Europe, freestyling his way all over Europe, China, Japan, South America, North America and Canada for photo and video shoots.

The course did not run smoothly, however. While snowboarding in California, he got caught in an avalanche and was dragged downwards until he managed to ‘swim’ his way out of danger.

He came terrifyingly close to falling down a 20-metre gap with rock walls on both sides, survived a 10-metre fall from a jump at an in-city snowboard event in Oslo, walking away with only a scar, and counts a broken back, ankles and wrists among his battle scars. He’s been catapulted into trees and literally seen the ground disappear beneath him.

When he suffered a bad crash in Japan, he was conscious of the debris of his surroundings — but also the beauty.

“It was magnificent”, he says by way of explanation, “so I saw this crash as a magical moment. But I also realised that I didn’t have to go to Japan or anywhere else to have that moment. I could’ve had this realisation in my own backyard.”

Larsen had another reason to settle and gather some moss. He had a longterm girlfriend, also a professional snowboarder, whom he had met in his early 20s. Throughout the noughties, they travelled the world and lived out of bags, finally tying the knot in 2009. In

Opening pages, from left to right: Danny Larsen, by Aaron Schwartz; Another Sleepless Night, 2022, marker and acrylic on linen canvas

These pages. clockwise from left: Flowers By The Forest Roadside, 2021, marker and acrylic on linen canvas; Even If I Cannot See The Colours, 2022, marker and acrylic on linen canvas; Snø Og Granskog, 2022, marker on linen canvas

2014, his wife became pregnant with their first child. Larsen decided that enough was enough. He no longer wanted to be a rolling stone, so he called his sponsors to resign from snowboarding. With the ultimate impetus to find a new means of supporting his new family, Larsen set up in a studio collective to resurrect his artistic talent, painting his way towards a bright future. Now he connects the dots, literally. His stippling technique, particularly the spacing between dots, allows the artist to detail intricate depth in the scene; we are shown that the ordinary can be something extraordinary. His almost spiritual response to the natural world and attention to detail are aspects of art that Larsen likens to snowboarding; both are intrinsically linked to nature. “Like snowboarding, art offers both freedom of self-expression and proximity to nature”, he observes.

Larsen explains what his process entails, from choosing a special moment to capture through to the finished painting. “The most important thing to me is to try to live a life where you appreciate all the small moments. I work at acknowledging those special moments and when we do that, you start realising how beautiful the world is.”

Larsen and his wife now live on the edge of the forest, a 45-minute journey from Oslo with their son Balder and daughter Solveig, who was born in 2017.

He walks around, a lot. If he sees something that takes his breath away, he stops, takes a photo of it. He observes and then he paints it, one dot at a time. His artworks are so detailed and photographic, it’s almost unfathomable that they are produced from hundreds of tiny points.

He may have circled the world on adrenaline-filled adventures yet now his paintings are inspired by daily walks, recreating the atmospheric beauty of the nearby forests that flank his own backyard. He reminds the viewer that areas of natural beauty are never that far away, wherever you are. In this, he has a poignant message for one and all: seek and you shall find. The ultimate magic can be found in the present and in one’s own surroundings.