The artwork of Mernet Larsen (BFA painting ’62) is currently featured in a solo exhibition, Things People Do, at the James Cohen Gallery in New York City. This exhibit presents a selection of new and recent paintings demonstrating Larsen’s distinct approaches to narrative painting.
Developed over the last 40 years, Larsen’s approach to narrative painting “reaches toward, not from, life.” Taking inspiration from the geometric abstractions of El Lissitzky and the narrative stylization of 12th Century Japanese and early Renaissance paintings, Larsen’s dizzying spaces often rendered in reverse perspective and hard edged figures offer familiar versions of reality that are similar and parallel to our own.
Larsen lives and works between Tampa, FL and Jackson Heights, New York. She has exhibited extensively in Florida since the late 1970s, including over 30 solo exhibitions and 70 group shows. Among them, sa+ah: Alumni Invitational Exhibition: Image, Object, Idea at UF’s University Gallery this past September.
Things People Do will be on view until February 21, 2016, at the gallery’s Lower East Side location at 291 Grand Street, New York City. For more information, visit jamescohan.com.
