[divider] [caption id="attachment_8150" align="alignleft" width="464"] Act II, Oil on canvas 20" x 20" 2013[/caption] Larissa and I met in New York, on the job so to speak. Many lunches and morning coffees were spent together discussing each others work, what shows we'd seen recently and what had caught our eye. I've always admired her gusto. Larissa now lives in Chicago and I have had the pleasure of watching her work develop from afar. I remember her early works, dark and frenzied with murderous marks, as if she was attacking the canvas or paper with her tools. Dismembered bodies and featureless faces were drawn like comic figures, making the work an unsettling combination of horror and humor. Larissa's early color palette included a lot of red and brown, reminding me of blood, both wet and dry. Fresh wounds mixed with those of the past. Incessant scratchings on the surface, the repetition of similar marks over and over again like some inner torment was being played out on the surface. Great artists evolve, their work informs itself and in time, thoughts become more complete and the artwork more accomplished. Larissa is one such artist. Her work is forever evolving, becoming whole - she'll never rest though, I can't imagine that her work will ever be enough for her and that's what makes her great. [caption id="attachment_8153" align="alignright" width="446"] Echo, Oil on canvas 20" x 20" 2014[/caption] From our chats I know of Larissa's love and respect for the art that has come before us. Her understanding of modernism is evident in the sophistication of her work. She has selectively stolen a little bit from here, a little from there and made it her own. I see the references, but I also see something exciting and new. These latest paintings invite you into a fresh space, both physical and psychological. The frenzy, aggression and humor are still there, but they have become weaved amongst a sophisticated sense of space and color. I get displaced when looking at her new work. I'm thrown into a territory where I feel multiple sensations simultaneously. Anger, joy, frustration, peace with glimpses of a familiar reality. Her art mimics life, there are no definite answers, just moments of clarity and confusion, comfort and discomfort. Larissa tells stories through her work without being didactic - a condition that plagues contemporary art. Her work is charged by both process and content, a multi-dimensional drama that plays out in two dimensional space. Perhaps what I love most of all is the spatial evolution of Larissa's work - I have spent many hours just sitting in the MoMA looking, marveling really, at The Piano Lesson by Matisse. I think it is a masterpiece, formally and emotionally. It has the power to invite you into an imagined, somewhat abstract space and hold you there. It is this quality that I see in Larissa's paintings. I'm so excited to see where she goes next, because I know it will somewhere exceptional.     [caption id="attachment_8162" align="aligncenter" width="465"] The Administrator, Oil on canvas 16" x 16" 2013[/caption] [caption id="attachment_8163" align="aligncenter" width="557"] All Dried Up, Oil on canvas 30" x 40" 2014[/caption] [caption id="attachment_8164" align="aligncenter" width="558"] An Offering (For Basic Necessity) Or Lack Of, Oil on canvas 60" x 60" 2013[/caption]      

Written by