Mernet Larsen by Johannes Vogt

TEXT BY JOHN YAU

Acknowledgement

“Mernet Larsen’s Achievement” by John Yau

Catalog: Abstract Strategies

Geometric Figuration

Heads

Chronology

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all, I would like to express my deep appreciation to Johannes Vogt and Fabian Bernal for initiating, overseeing, and realizing the production of this book. From the moment they started representing me, in 2011, it was their ambitious goal to produce the first monograph ever on my work, and they have been relentless and passionate in bringing this project to fruition. Fabian’s outstanding design skills and sensibility, and Johannes’ discerning mind and excellent editing and organizational abilities created a remarkable synergy. I feel fortunate to have had this opportunity to collaborate with them. I am so pleased with John Yau’s thoughtful and insightful essay, which opened up connections I had not thought of. I am also grateful to Damiani Press and ARTBOOK/D.A.P., especially Andrea Albertini, Eleonora Pasqui, Lorenzo Tugnoli, Alexander Galan, and Luke P. Brown, for seeing the potential of this book and taking on its publication and distribution. Special thanks also to the staff of Johannes Vogt Gallery, particularly Samuel Draxler, Jana Brooks and Rosa Vargas, who was especially helpful in developing the initial stages of the book, and Veronica Kim, who was invaluable in the final stages. My husband, Roger Palmer, tirelessly documented 50 years of my work. Also much appreciated were the support and editorial input of my friends Charlotte Schulz and Dolores Coe. I would also like to acknowledge the critical roles the following people had in the development of my work and career: James McGarrell, David Cohen, and the late Hiram Williams, Andrew Forge, and Sidney Tillim. My parents, Janet and Merwin Larsen, my sisters, Janeen Larsen and Lyndell Millecchia, and my many remarkable students and colleagues at the University of South Florida over 35 years provided exceptionally nurturing and challenging environments for the development of my work and ideas. Finally, I am above all indebted to my husband, Roger Palmer, for his love, support and encouragement over the last 37 years. His own art is a constant inspiration to me, and he performs a critical role in my process, with his imaginative suggestions and sensitive, insightful critiques.

MER N E T L A RS E N ’ S A CH I E V E ME N T JOH N Y A U

I. In 2000, Mernet Larsen – whose semi-abstract paintings combined monochromatic grounds with figures made of straight lines – came to a turning point in her career:

“I decided that I wanted to paint old-fashioned narrative paintings with volume and depth and the essences of significant actions. I developed a longing for pictures evoking a classical sense of permanence, solidity, in the spirit of 15th century Italian painting. But I knew these paintings would have to be statements of longing, of recognition that essences must be constructed, not uncovered. They would have to be makeshift contraptions, taking into consideration the issues I had been dealing with for the previous 40 years.” In wanting to make visual “statements of longing,” Larsen made a distinction between “constructed” and “uncovered” meaning, which I believe is crucial to understanding just how radical her paintings became around this time. The changes she made enabled her to extend her work toward all kinds of subject matter, from the ever-present to the fanciful. Equally remarkable is that she has continually upped the ante since that time.

Larsen wanted her pictures to be places where “time stopped,” with “essences of memories and relationships made tangible”:

“As if I were leaving this life and had to take with me only a very few concrete images: this is what it was, not good, not bad, just what stood out. Not ephemeral, not photo or film-like, but memory turned into object, monumentalized.” Larsen wanted to change her work, but she did not want to take the well-trodden path of figurative realism or even surrealism within a conventional space. She especially did not want to work within a conventional space. By defining the painting’s two-dimensional surface as a place where something is constructed, not uncovered, she distinguished herself from other narrative artists who base their work – at least partially – on the familiar formats of illusionistic space, such as a stage set (or backdrop) where the narrative takes place. Instead of developing a signature style that implicitly accepted certain conventions regarding

illusionism, Larsen painstakingly figured out how to absorb and transform the fundamentals of traditional representation – spatiality, composition, and perspective – without becoming a representational artist. This leads to the second crucial thing to understand about Larsen’s paintings, which is that they are, as she states, “analogs” rather than “representations.” This is what Larsen has in common with Philip Guston in his final decade. The difference is that she has removed herself (or what in literature would be called the “I”) from her iconography, distancing it from the autobiographical. Her block-like figures come across as anonymous. What they reveal

narrative painting – figures in space – into a pictorial language all her own, she is able to turn a familiar situation into a scene at once tense and humorous, incisive and distressing. Humor, bewilderment, sadness, frustration, anger and isolation are just some of the states that can be found in a single Larsen painting. No matter what they are doing, the figures seem to be stuck inside their bodies. In Larsen’s work, the figure and ground are uniformly important. I would go further and advance that figure and ground exert a strong influence on each other in ways that are simultaneously transparent and elusive. It is as if Larsen shows us precisely how she did a magic trick and we still cannot figure out exactly how it’s done. In Café (2012), Larsen combines reverse perspective and a vocabulary of block-like forms to depict people sitting at booths, as others walk by, carrying trays. It could be a college cafeteria full of students. And yet, despite the ordinariness of the scene, and its lack of overt drama, as we focus on the distinct and overlapping narratives populating the painting, the situation begins to feel highly charged and open to different readings.

Café, 2012 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 47.5 x 47.5 inches (120.5 x 120.5 cm) Collection of Dr. Thomas J. Huerter

about themselves is only through pose, gesture and action. Their geometry, which we associate with balance and the rational, has become simultaneously irrational and logical: a paradox – one of many – that informs Larsen’s work. It is an instability introduced through her imaginative restating of the dynamic geometry one finds in the Constructivist paintings of Kazimir Malevich, El Lissitzky and others. By meticulously converting the essence of

In reverse perspective, the further things are, the bigger they get. It upsets what we know to be true, which is that something diminishes in size as it moves away. Although there is a logic governing Larsen’s world, she has also added volatility and doubt into the equation. Nothing is as it might appear. Is the large figure sitting alone in the booth furthest from us physically huge, or does he look that way because the artist has used reverse perspective? It is precisely because of Larsen’s straightforward use of an unlikely, little used perspectival device that the painting demands to be unraveled. The transparency of the mechanics of the painting infuses it with mystery, provoking further questions about what is going on elsewhere in the composition. What made the coffee cup tumble off the man’s tray? Who is the person in the middle booth waiting for? What are the two people in the booth closest to us talking about? Why is the one facing us simply sitting there, neither eating nor drinking, arms down at her sides? Is the small figure walking in the right foreground

that diminutive? In Larsen’s painting, these ubiquitous situations gain an air of inscrutability. It’s as if we have never seen anything like them before, which is actually true; thanks to the artist’s radical transformations, we haven’t seen them presented to us like this before. Seeing becomes a kind of detective work, searching for clues while sorting through the visual evidence. We find ourselves on intimate terms with the familiar and even banal. A foreboding psychological charge circulates through Café, as if on the verge of detonating. The anarchy incipient in everyday life comes across as synonymous with its ordinariness. Is the falling coffee a harbinger of things to come? This is the undeniable power of Larsen’s work – she endows ubiquitous occurrences with an oddness that, on the surface of things, seems logical. At the same time, everywhere we look in Café, something is going on, and none of it seems more or less important than anything else. We have a bird’s eye view of a world of distinct actions, simultaneity. Larsen inculcates the painting with a democratic view – every inch of the surface is equally important. It is an equality we associate with all-over abstraction, rather than figuration. This, I would advance, is one of the artist’s signal achievements – by endowing different parts of a narrative painting with equal importance, she reminds us that multiple stories are forever unfolding in any one place, with none of them being central. In addition to being democratic, this view is also spiritual – all lives are sacred.

With this flexible geometry in mind, the artist went on to transform each part the body, including all extremities. At the same time, by breaking down the body into distinct components, Larsen recog-

nized something that Merce Cunningham understood and used to revolutionize modern dance – that each part of the body could be autonomous in its movements. The right hand could be doing one thing, while the left foot is doing something else. He deconstructed the dancer into a series of seemingly disconnected gestures.

Getting Measured, 1999 Acrylic, oil and tracing paper on canvas 52.5 x 57.5 inches (133.5 x 146 cm) Collection of Ringling Museum of Art

II. It is clear that Larsen, as she brought together disparate sources to inform her work, understood that in this postmodern era all styles and modes of pictorial presentation were available for use. However, instead of citing and collaging together her various sources, as many of her younger contemporaries were content to do, she transformed them into a flexible, open-ended approach to both the figure and spatiality. In terms of the figure, she embarked upon reconstructing them – literally from the ground up – out of rectangular block, a commonplace geometric form that served as the torso.

Likewise, the figures Larsen puts into her paintings, such as the woman standing on the platform in Getting Measured (1999), behave like contortionists: one hand may be held in a distinct position, while the other may be engaged in doing something completely different. The tension between the whole and the part operates on many levels, from the figures’ relationship with the environment to the way the figure incorporates the variously independent parts of his or her body. Viewers have to focus and refocus, in order to see all that is going on.

III. How expressive can you make the body’s posture while working within these self-imposed constraints? How do you address similarity and difference? While the world the artist creates is dominated by geometry, there are exceptions. Why does she paint the bird’s body using one method and its wings with another? Why is the hamburger, which is held in the vise-like hand of the biggest figure in Café, a sphere? I think the very fact that we find ourselves asking these rather mundane questions is part of Larsen’s intention – she is trying to get us to look closer, to sift through the evidence offered in the painting, and to see what we can make of it. She is interested in narrative as an open-ended flow, rather than a closed story. She wants us to ask questions, just as she herself is doing. For her, painting is a form of philosophical inquiry, at once probing and speculative, a testing of possibilities.

Committee, 2007 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 36 x 68 inches (91.5 x 172.5 cm) Collection of Trenton Doyle Hancock

The freshness of Larsen’s paintings of the last decade – and this is true of Philip Guston’s late work as well – is a testimony to the clarity with which she has reevaluated those swatches of art history that have flown beneath the radar or aren’t even on the map. Like Guston, she ignores received opinion and instinctively sees for herself. Guston looked to the late work of Giorgio de Chirico, while Larsen is drawn to the figurative work that Kazimir Malevich did after his celebrated Constructivist abstractions. Could the dynamic geometry of Malevich’s earlier work be brought back into play in Larsen’s narrative paintings?

IV. In addition to Russian Constructivism, Larsen brings together Chinese and Japanese art and philosophy, Japanese Bunraku puppet theater, Udaipur palace paintings, 15th century Italian painting, the heads of Alexej von Jawlensky, and the science of the perspectival organization of space. It’s a heady, unlikely brew that few artists are capable of synthesizing into a single, supple approach. The reverse perspective Larsen uses in Committee (2007) achieves a very different state than the distortions of Café. The subject is a faculty meeting, which is indicated by the blackboard behind the figures. A V-like conference table begins midway near the painting’s bottom left. One half of the vector angles upward to span nearly the entire width of the painting, widening as it moves further back in the cramped space. The other arm of the V consists of two narrow tables brought together, their tapered edges touching each other in the foreground, near the lower edge, at about the middle of the painting. Five figures sit on the far side of the large conference table, and, like the table, they increase in size, moving from left to right. The figures are geometric solids, variations on the cube. Behind them, on the surface of the blackboard, the artist has painted open and closed geometric forms, suggesting empty, transparent boxes, something the viewer can see through. There are six small figures closer to us, but we see only their backs. They are seated at the two narrow tables in the foreground, and they are smaller than any of the figures above them. The diminishing size of the figures at the larger table, as well as the uneven row of smaller figures near the painting’s bottom edge, sum up the endless power struggles endemic to committee meetings. The small figures along the bottom are all slumped – their curved backs suggesting that they are cowed, defeated, or bored. The increasingly larger figures ascending from the bottom left corner are more rigid, evoking severity. They are bored as well, but also serious and,

to this viewer at least, comical and disturbing. The largest figure, in a purple, long-sleeved shirt, leans forward, hands clasped, elbows planted firmly and sharply on the table. The noticeably smaller figure to the left is wearing a pink short-sleeved shirt, arms resting on the table, hands folded, as if grace is being said. He is relaxed and apprehensive. Following the logic of reverse perspective, the figure to his left leans back stiffly, arms extending sharply downward, until the elbows meet the table, forearms thrust forward, with hands clasped. Is he bored, angry or just ill-at-ease? Larsen understands the studied pose someone takes when he or she wishes to be elsewhere. No one understands boredom and being stuck in a meeting – whether business or social – as well as she does. She is both sardonic and sympathetic, sharp and generous. A social consciousness runs through her work but never becomes the central focus. The narrative is never transparent. Her paintings never dwindle into being about this or that. For all of the banality of her subject matter, the paintings remain elusive, something to be scrutinized. In this regard, she shares something with two very different artists, Jasper Johns and Catherine Murphy. According to Johns, the reason for painting “flags” and “targets” was because “[they] were both things - which are seen and not looked at, not examined.” Although Johns, Murphy and Larsen all work in very different ways, their focus on the omnipresence of daily life is devoid of the ready-mades that are synonymous with mass media and pop culture. It seems to me that by moving beyond the exhausted use of readymade images derived from mass media, Larsen is at the forefront of artists who seek to replace the tropes that came into play with the rise of Pop Art more than fifty years ago, recognizing how tiresome and predictable they have by now become, how exhausted their use feels. It seems to me that the artists who have eschewed style and are working in uncategorizable ways are the ones we should pay attention to. Style is a

matter of surface, and to adopt a style is to insulate oneself from the kind of thorough evaluation that Johns, Murphy and Larsen have undertaken. In their work we encounter a deep questioning of how to depict what Charles Baudelaire defined as “Modern life” – the conjoining of the ephemeral and the eternal – without resorting to familiar standbys suggested by transcendence and cynicism. Knowing that chaos awaits them, these artists address the question that has haunted us throughout history – what does it mean to exist in time?

V. In Mall Event (2010), Larsen achieves a different kind of mystery. By abutting conflicting perspectival systems together, so that each governs a distinct area of the painting, she evokes the vertigo that is common to postmodern life, the dizzying ride up and down escalators in a high-ceilinged mall. A short diagonal row of parked vehicles extends down from the lower right edge of the painting. We feel as if we are peering over edge of a roof, looking straight down at them, and that they are far, far away. Near the center of the painting a woman holds a baby aloft, as if offering it for sacrifice or proclaiming its importance. At the same time, she is looking at the child, either entertaining or scolding it. Once again, we are in what I think can be called Larsen territory, where the ordinary becomes highly dramatic, something surprising and unsettling, comical and distressing. Larsen achieves this through the use of geometric and perspectival devices, eschewing all the familiar forms of expressiveness and expressionism – painterly brushstrokes and jarring juxtapositions of color. Her paintings are simultaneously insistent and remote, present and elusive. Perhaps this is what she meant when she said that she wanted “memory turned into object, monumentalized.” And in that turning of memory into an object, the viewers’ attention is free to roam through the painting, ponder what is there, and ask questions, none of which will ever be completely and thoroughly

answered. Larsen knows there is no sanctuary, nowhere we can go to escape the effects of time passing, but that doesn’t cause her to stop being curious, stop wanting to look, stop wanting to celebrate the ordinary and what’s underfoot. In Mall Event, we see a woman in the distance, just to the right of the woman holding the baby. The women’s dresses are the same color orange. The far-off woman stands like a caryatid, arms folded, on a black granite block that is part of the stepped wall beside the mall’s public stairs. What is the relationship between these two women? Why are they spatially so far apart? What about the other two figures in the painting, both of whom are male? What about the huge bird in upper left hand corner? What about the color scheme of the painting, which is composed of closely related hues – oranges, brown, and salmon pink? We feel as if we should be looking at something we know, something familiar, something out of everyday life. The scene is a mall, a public space, which (like the cafeteria) has largely been abandoned as subject matter by painters and, more recently, even by photographers, who have chosen to use the Internet as their camera. Time has been halted so that all of it can be carefully gone over. In all of her work Larsen elevates the ordinary and banal into the domain of the astonishing. It is as if we never before looked at our lives so closely and carefully, which perhaps we haven’t, certainly not like this.

Mall Event, 2010 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 50 x 55 inches (127 x 139.5 cm)

C ATAL OG

A B S TR AC T STR ATEGIES

Sadhu Arching, 1996 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 63 x 45 inches (160 x 114.5 cm)

Sadhu Contemplating Foot, 1997 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 63 x 49 inches (160.0 x 124.5 cm)

Golfer, 1997 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 53 x 58 inches (135 x 147 cm)

Weight Lifter, 1999 Acrylic, mixed media on canvas 102 x 46 inches (259 x 117 cm)

Top: Hopeful Prisoner, 1994 Acrylic on paper 32 x 12 inches (81 x 31 cm) Collection of Peter and Debbie Hepner Right: Inside/Outside, 1989 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 53 x 59 inches (134.5 x 149.5 cm) Private Collection

Top: Escalator, 2008 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 47 x 45 inches (119.5 x 114.5 cm) Collection of Dr. Viktor Nyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ri Right: Escalator, 1988 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 54 x 59 inches (137 x 150 cm) Private Collection

Balancing Act, 1992 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 72 x 44 inches (182.5 x 111.5 cm) Collection of Jan Stein

Leap of Faith, 1994 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 39 x 27 inches (100 x 68 cm) Private Collection

G E OMETR IC FIGU R ATION

Top: Street Scene, 1984 Oil on canvas 8 x 60 inches (147.5 x 152.5 cm) Right: Sunday Drive, 1986 Oil on canvas 30 x 48 inches (76 x 122 cm)

Top: Measuring Itself, 1989 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 33 x 78 inches (83.5 x 198 cm) Collection of Eric Peterson Right: Getting Measured, 1999 Acrylic, oil, tracing paper on canvas 52.5 x 57.5 inches (133 x 146 cm) Collection of Ringling Museum of Art

Top: French Toast, 2002 Oil on paper 24 x 18 inches (61 x 46 cm) Private Collection Bottom: The Writer, 2000 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 50 x 50 inches (127 x 127 cm) Left: Handshake, 2001 Acrylic, oil, tracing paper on canvas 69 x 36 inches (175 x 91 cm)

Top: Proun 12 E, 1923 El Lissitzky Oil on canvas 22.5 x 16.5 inches (57 x 42.5 cm) Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Bottom: Shoppers, 1987 Acrylic on canvas 49 x 66 inches (124.5 x 167.5 cm) Right: Shoppers, 2001 Acrylic, oil, tracing paper on canvas 54 x 54 inches (137 x 137 cm) Collection of Walt Blenner

Top: Ambush, 2003 - 2004 Acrylic, pastel, oil, tracing paper on canvas 45.5 x 63.5 inches (115.5 x 161 cm) Right: Gunfighters, 2001 Acrylic, tracing paper, oil on canvas 43.5 x 68 inches (110 x 173 cm) Collection of John Tarapani

Aw, 2003 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 40 x 66 inches (102 x 168 cm)

Top: Faculty Meeting, 2008 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 58 x 40 inches (147.5 x 101.5 cm) Right: Seminar, 2011 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 59 x 40 inches (150 x 102 cm) Collection of Dr. Viktor Nyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ri

Lecture, 2011 Acrylic, tracing paper, string on canvas 58 x 36 inches (147.5 x 91.5 cm) Collection of Dr. Viktor Nyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ri

Explanation, 2007 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 41 x 52 inches (104 x 132 cm)

Shorts, 2008 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 32 x 52 inches (81 x 132 cm)

Cube, 2005 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 58 x 36 inches (147.5 x 91.5 cm) Collection of Martha Zornow

Flat Tire, 2010 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 60 x 43 inches (152.5 x 109.5 cm)

Landscape with a Dirt Road (from Poussin), 2011 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 26 x 54 inches (66 x 137 cm)

Top: Contemplating Black Creek, 1991-2 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 57 x 61 inches (144.5 x 155 cm) Right: Mishap, 2002 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 54 x 54 inches (137 x 137 cm)

Top: 3 Studies of Yellow Bus, 2007 Acrylic on paper 7 x 9.5 inches (18 x 24 cm) Right: Yellow Bus, 2008 Acrylic, tracing paper, string on canvas 40 x 70 inches (101.5 x 177.5 cm)

Top: Coming Home, 2010 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 49 x 47 inches (124.5 x 119.5 cm) Bottom: Proun 19D, 1922 El Lissitzky Gesso, oil, paper, cardboard on plywood 38 x 38 inches (97.5 x 97.5 cm) Museum of Modern Art, New York Left: Icarus (After El Lissitzky), 2010 Acrylic on paper 19 x 24 inches (48 x 61 cm)

Dusk, 2012 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 47.25 x 58 inches (120 x 147 cm)

Dawn, 2012 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 49.5 x 58 inches (125.5 x 147.5 cm)

Skier, 2013 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 59.5 x 49.5 inches (150.5 x 125.5 cm)

Top: Ballerina, 2007 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 66.5 x 39 inches (169 x 100 cm) Private Collection Left: Conductor, 2012 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 58.75 x 47.25 inches (149 x 120 cm)

Top: Sit ups Leg Lifts (Detail) Right: Sit ups Leg Lifts, 2012 Acrylic, string, tracing paper on canvas 46.25 x 60.25 inches (117 x 153 cm)

Top: Walk on a Windy Day, 2001 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 60 x 60 inches (152.5 x 152.5 cm) Collection of Michael Graham Right: Booth, 2012 Acrylic on canvas 55.5 x 48 inches (141.5 x 122 cm)

H EAD S

Phenomenologist #1, 1984 Oil on paper 18 x 12 inches (46 x 30 cm)

Phenomenologist #2, 1984 Oil on paper 18 x 12 inches (46 x 30 cm)

Classical Idealist #1, 1984 Oil on paper 18 x 12 inches (46 x 30 cm)

Classical Idealist #2, 1984 Oil on paper 18 x 12 inches (46 x 30 cm)

Head Study #7, 2009 Acrylic on paper 19 x 24 inches (48 x 61 cm)

Head Study #12, 2009 Acrylic on paper 19 x 24 inches (48 x 61 cm)

Smog, 2005 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 42 x 22 inches (107 x 56 cm)

Couple, 2005 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 42 x 22 inches (107 x 56 cm)

Disagreement, 2011 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 41 x 24 inches (104 x 61 cm)

Encounter, 2011 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 42 x 25 inches (107 x 64 cm)

Top: Head Studies #10, 2011 Acrylic on paper 19 x 24 inches (48 x 61 cm) Middle: Head Studies #1, 2011 Acrylic on bristol board paper 19 x 24 inches (48 x 61 cm) Bottom: Head Studies #17, 2009 Acrylic on paper 19 x 24 inches (48 x 61 cm) Right: Conference, 2011 Acrylic on canvas 45 x 57 inches (114 x 145 cm)

Top: Head Studies #4, 2011 Acrylic on paper 19 x 24 inches (48 x 61 cm) Bottom: Head Studies #9, 2011 Acrylic and tracing paper on paper 19 x 24 inches (48 x 61 cm) Right: Head Studies #13, 2009 Acrylic on paper 19 x 24 inches (48 x 61 cm)

Haunting #1, 2012 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 26 x 26 inches (66 x 66 cm)

Haunting #2, 2012 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 26 x 26 inches (66 x 66 cm)

Conversation, 2012 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 35.5 x 49.5 inches (89.5 x 126.5 cm)

C H R ON OL OGY

MERNET LARSEN

1940

Born in Houghton Michigan. Grew up in Rochester NY, Chicago, and Gainesville FL

1958-62

BFA with high honors at University of Florida; studies with Hiram Williams Summer sessions at Art Students League, NY and San Francisco Art Institute (with Nathan Olivera) Rejects prevailing Abstract Expressionism, decides to work with ordinary, mundane subject matter as a means of giving significance to the seeming banality of her life. Develops idea that what you see determines how you see. Does conceptual paintings of couches, cows, “tablescapes”, sisters dancing in living room, each subject matter triggering a different approach. (1)

1963-65 1

MFA, Indiana University; studies with James McGarrell, William Bailey Growing interest in narrative and perception. While continuing with her conceptual investigations of ordinary objects, also works from life. Reads Leo Steinberg’s “Other Criteria” and Wolfflin’s PRINCIPLES OF ART HISTORY which inspire and inform her work for many years.

1965-67

Teaches drawing and art history at University of Oklahoma, Norman

1966

Summer - MacDowell Colony residency, Peterborough NH

1967

Begins teaching at University of South Florida (USF), Tampa

1967

Series of paintings of car and room interiors as reflected on curved surfaces. (2) Significantly influenced by E.H. Gombrich’s ART AND ILLUSION and Anton Ehrenzweig’s HIDDEN ORDER OF ART.

1970

Summer - Teaches Italian Art History in the Catholic University of Milan’s Rome Summer Session for Americans. Travel in Europe

1973-81

Intermittently lives in NYC Does major series of 6’x9’ narrative paintings. Inspired by Robbe-Grillet’s TOWARD A NEW NOVEL, MerleauPonty, films, and novels. Uses photographic fragments as “color fields” and “perceptual units”. (3)

1973-75

Lives in loft building on Waverly Place, NYC, along with former classmates Dan Christiansen and Sharon Francis; social hub for Clement Greenberg and Color Field painters

1975

Marries artist Roger Palmer

1975-76

Initiates and teaches NYC Spring program for USF Art Students

1976

Teaches Fall session at Yale, gives lecture on work. With Roger, converts Chelsea industrial loft into studio/residence

1977

Winter session - Visiting artist at University of Montana, Bozeman; solo exhibition of large narrative painting series in university gallery

1978

Summer - Teaches at Yale-Norfolk, in faculty exhibition

1979-80

19801983

19812003 6

Commits to living in Florida, continues to teach at the University of South Florida Over next 20 years, does research/travel, in Mexico, Europe, Japan, China, and India, often supported by USF grants

1984

1986

Sees Malevich retrospective at MoMA; also becomes interested in El Lissitzky. Uses these artists’ works as Rorschachs or jumping off points, reading them as objects, narratives, or floor plans, letting these different readings “battle for accord” within the painting. See p. 38.

Spends 6 weeks in Japan Roland Barthes’ writings on Bunraku puppet theatre inspire her trip to Japan. While there, falls in love with 9-12th c. narrative scrolls, especially the Genji and Kitano Shrine emaki. The compositions of sections of these emaki are used repeatedly as springboards over the next 25 years. They also illicit a desire to make her paintings more physical, tactile, layered, and improvisational. (7, 8) Initiates series of paintings she sees as analogies for, rather than direct representations of, ordinary life. See pp. 25-29.

1985

Studies Renaissance painting techniques and anatomy. Does series of portraits using “Vermeer” technique of underpainting in grisaille, glazing color. (4) Employs Renaissance practice of making preliminary drawings representing the human figure as simple geometric forms. (5) Finds she prefers the preliminary drawings to more traditionally realized paintings. Does several paintings of geometric figures, which allow her to introduce humor and a more specific “attitude” toward her subject matter. (6) These eventually evolve into more abstract paintings.

Converts, with Roger, another industrial loft in Williamsburg, NY

Named University of South Florida’s Outstanding Teacher; gives commencement address

1989

In “Made in Florida”, USF/CAM, a group show of 25 artists including Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, and John Chamberlain; show travels to several venues in Europe Included in the American Academy of Arts and Letters Annual Purchase Exhibition, NYC, and “Southern Abstraction”, curated by Peter Frank, City Gallery of Contemporary Art, Raleigh, NC and Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans

1991

Travel in China (PRC); visiting artist at Nanjing Normal and Nanjing College of Art, lecture on work

1992

Three decade retrospective, Deland Museum of Art, FL Begins series of slaves and workers triggered by readings on slavery and concerns about racism. Paintings start abstractly, aren’t finished until a content or “title” emerges clearly. Paintings become increasingly minimal and white. (9)

1995

Travel in Rajasthan, India Becomes intruiged with palace paintings in Udaipur, which become inspiration for many paintings after 2000. (10, 11) Does series of lines drawn on tracing paper and folded multiple times. These become metaphors of inseparability of people and space and lead to series of Sadhu paintings. See pp. 20-21

1999

Decides to make a shift and start painting narrative paintings in the spirit of 15th c. Italian painting (12)

Begins series of narrative paintings of geometrically constructed ”characters” using parallel perspective. Reintroduces color, volume, depth, and more literally representational subject matter. Wants a synthesis of her narrative/figurative paintings of the sixties and seventies and her abstract paintings of the eighties and nineties. Often uses abstract paintings as springboards. As in the earlier abstract paintings, the mechanisms of the paintings remain fully visible: drawing, pasting on tracing paper, laying on texture paint, embedding string, peeling and scraping. (13, 14)

2000

Panel participant, “Art of the Last Millennium” panel in Naples, FL, organized by Andrew Forge; meets Graham Nickson, who invites her to be in group show at the New York Studio School

2002

Lecture on work for New York Studio School lecture series

2003

Retires from USF; Professor Emeritus

2004

In “Transitory Patterns” exhibition, Museum of Women in the Arts, DC

Organizes and participates in panel “Retrofitting: Traditional Asian Art in Contemporary Painting Practice” at the CAA Convention in Seattle 2005

Solo Show, New York Studio School. Initiated and curated by David Cohen Ongoing exploratory studies and paintings of heads, trying to redefine them as something other than faces and tops of bodies. Particularly interested in the subject/object tensions between people, and in the way different philosophers and psychologists define the “mind”. Plays with optical illusion. See pp. 68-85.

2006 15

Co-curates (with Elisabeth Condon) and participates in “Dragon Veins”, an exhibition of artists who draw upon traditional East Asian art. Contemporary Art Museum, USF Panelist/speaker, “Meanings and Functions of Narrative,” CAA Annual Conference, NYC Begins series of paintings based on photos she takes of faculty meeting. Experiments with reverse perspective, so that the characters seem to get larger as they are further away. See pp. 44-49.

2008

Curates “Dark Poets,” Decker Gallery, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore

2009

2010

Experiments with landscapes in reverse perspective. (16), See pp. 50-51.

Ten year retrospective, Morean Art Center, St. Petersburg, FL With Roger, buys co-op in Jackson Heights, NY. Begins dividing time between New York and Tampa

2011

Two person show at Regina Rex Gallery, Queens, NY David Cohen introduces her to Johannes Vogt, and includes her in “The Fitting Room” which he curates for Johannes Vogt Gallery 17

2012

Begins representation by Johannes Vogt Gallery, New York Paintings of friends around tables. (17, 18) See pp. 10, 67. Also revisits El Lissitzky and Japanese emaki sources. See pp. 56-62.

2012

Solo show “Three Chapters”, Johannes Vogt Gallery “Three Chapters” discussed by Review Panel participants Ariella Budrick, David Cohen, Roberta Smith and Marjorie Wellish at the National Academy, NY

1. Cows on Hill, 1961 Oil on canvas 36 x 30 inches (91.5 x 76 cm) Private Collection 2. Car Interior, 1969 Oil on canvas 66 x 44 inches (167.5 x 111.5 cm) 3. Black Comedy, 1974 Oil on rag paper 72 x 108 inches (183 x 274.5 cm) 4. Carolyn, 1981 Oil on canvas 36 x 30 inches (91.5 x 76.5 cm) Private Collection

5. Preparatory study by Luca Cambiaso, 16th c. 6. Street Scene, 1984 Oil on canvas 58 x 60 inches (147.5 x 152.5 cm) 7. Kitano Shrine emaki, 13th c. Japan 8. Japanese Landscape, 1986 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 46 x 112 inches (116.5 x 284.5 cm) Collection of Jay and Peg Trezevant

9. Proletarian, 1994 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 24 x 16 inches (60.5 x 40.5 cm) Collection of Cathleen Clayton

13. Tea, 2000-2001 Acrylic, tracing paper, string on canvas 52 x 56 inches (132 x 142 cm)

10. Palace painting in Udaipur, India 18th c.

14. Indecisive Woman, 2000 60 x 30 inches (152.5 x 76 cm)

11. Icon, 2004 Acrylic, oil, tracing paper on canvas 48 x 58 inches (121.5 x 147.5 cm) Collection of Michael Graham

15. Mall Walkers, 2009 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 60 x 30 inches (152.5 x 76 cm) Private Collection

12. Piero Della Francesca, Resurrection Mural in fresco and tempera 88.5 x 78.5 inches (225 x 200 cm)

17. The Salad, 2013 Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas 69.5 x 39.5 inches (176.5 x 100 cm) 18. Study for Card Players, 2013 Acrylic on paper 18 x 24 inches (46 x 61 cm)

16. Ozello Landscape, 2009 Acrylic on paper 24 x 19 inches (60.5 x 48.5 cm)

MERNET LARSEN Text by John Yau Managing Editor: Johannes Vogt Design: Fabian Leonardo Bernal Copy Editing: Samuel Draxler, Johannes Vogt Layout Implementation: Rosa Vargas and Veronica Kim All photographs Copyright 2013 Mernet Larsen All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, in any form (beyond copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law, and except reviewers for the public press), without permission from the publisher.

Via Zanardi 376, Bologna - Italy Tel: +39 051 6350805 Fax: +39 051 6347188 info@damianieditore.com www.damianieditore.com Copyright 2013 Damiani Editore ISBN 9788862083065 Printed in Italy by Grafiche Damiani Distributed in the United States of America by ARTBOOK | D.A.P. 155 Sixth Avenue New York, NY 10013 www.artbook.com This Publication is supported by JOHANNES VOGT GALLERY 526 W 26th Street New York, NY 10001 www.vogtgallery.com