the semi-finalist is: Kendra larson

The Springs
2021, acrylic on canvas, 24" x 36"

I’ve always had a soft spot in my personal canon for artists that embrace a certain sense of illustration in their work. For some reason this term - illustration - carries with it a bit of the pejorative. It’s as if a clear depiction is somehow not to be trusted, the directness of it is ironically seen as a form of deceit. Maybe it’s that, for many, the word conjures up notions of simplicity or mere entertainment. But in the right hands - I’m thinking of Charles Burchfield, Charles White, Wayne Thiebaud, and Kathe Kollwitz at the moment- the ability to illustrate is a way of amplifying an emotional state. These artists are (or were) keen observers of the natural world that we are tethered to as well as the social-political world that we are embedded in, and their chosen techniques help to bring their observations to life.
Portland, Oregon based painter Kendra Larson is an artist that does not shy away from her technical ability or her desire to illustrate the feelings she has for the natural world and our place in it. She’s a painter that deals with the everyday- holidays, natural disasters, a drive through the woods to who knows where- and often uses photography to get started. But the source is just a starting place in Larson’s capable hands, and she rarely (if ever) feels the need to mimic what has already been recorded. Instead, her aim is to pull the viewer into a heightened reality made from a mixture of recognizable details and intuitive - almost impulsive- decisions about color, line and shape. What is photographically real becomes abstracted, and that abstraction is in turn more emotionally alive than the image that she started with.
This month on The Semi-Finalist I’m pleased to present my interview with Kendra Larson. In it she talks about her formative years as an artist, her inspirations and process, and how her relationship with nature helped her to develop her voice as a painter.

Two small works on the wall and Kendra Larson in her SE Portland studio.

The Semi-Finalist: Can you talk a bit about your formative years? When did you start seeing yourself as a painter and who were your influences during that time?

Kendra Larson: Painting and art have always been a part of my life. My mom always encouraged me, signing me up for all sorts of art classes. She was also an interior designer, so I grew up surrounded by her collections of geodes, masks, and etchings. Art was something I felt good doing. When things were bad it lifted me up and provided a welcome constant for me. 
I grew up in Salem, Oregon and have a little sister, Ashley. My parents divorced when I was young and we moved around town a lot. My grandma has owned a wig shop downtown for 50 years, so that felt like my true home. 
The artists I met in my early teens made a strong impression on me. Their courage and dedication to honesty was what I wanted to achieve in my life. I remember taking art classes at the Bush Barn Art Center in Salem and later interning with a glass artist, Wendy Brockhaus, in high school. She taught me how to make a white Russian. She clearly loved what she did and had a deep passion for art. Around that same time, my art teacher, Ms. (Shirley) Giesbrecht, became an awesome mentor for me. I admired her blunt honesty and approach to life. One time she asked if I wanted to fulfill a commission. I was so honored that she would ask me. I spent weeks painting a portrait of Miles Davis for the unknown patron and she encouraged me every step of the way. That’s when I started to think of myself as a painter. I don’t know where that painting ended up, but I still keep in touch with Shirley to this day.

Santiam Pass
2021, acrylic on canvas, 24" x 36"

Other formative moments in my life appear in my memory as vignettes. They often happen outside on trips, camping and hiking. Some that come to mind are: 

• My mom taught me how to draw conifers by observing how the light changes as it moves across the bark. It was mind blowing at the time to see the curve of the trunk lifting off the paper like that. 
  
• One summer, as an undergrad, I traveled alone to Italy and Spain during a record heatwave to study and see art. I learned that art is a lot more powerful when you can share the experience of looking at it with someone, anyone, else. 
  
• At PNCA, I remember Lucinda Parker telling the painting class I was in that we should ‘paint like you make love- with passion and as if it were your last.’
  
• I did a residency at Caldera shortly after graduating from PNCA. Among the snow-covered remains of a forest fire I saw power, destruction, beauty, and renewal. In retrospect, perhaps my psychological landscape was similar; I realized that I was educated, but untethered. This was the start of my trajectory in terms of landscapes. 
  
• During a residency in New Zealand I went spelunking twenty feet underground to see glow worms twinkle and light up a cave like stars in the sky. This showed me how magical nature can be and how easily our perceptions can shift. 
  
• After grad school, my husband and collaborator, Christopher, and I spent a month in Argentina. Hiking in the Andes, amongst the glacier and horse flies, I observed the drama of scale. 
  
• A few years later we visited Puerto Rico to cheer on my sister’s roller derby team. There we visited the bioluminescent Mosquito Bay in Vieques and saw the water glow with microbes. The sense of wonder and joy in that place is palpable. 
  
• We took my grandmother to Ireland a few years after that. We visited the cliffs of Moher, which put our human existence into perspective, then shared a pint to bring ourselves back down earth.  
  
• In London I remember visiting the museums. To occupy our two-year-old we sought out images of dogs. That’s how I learned how important dogs are to artists. And this was only a few years ago, which goes to show that as an artist I am always learning. 
  
  

As for artists as inspiration, through high school I looked to Van Gogh, Klimt, and the pre-Raphaelites. The water light-show at Enchanted Forest was also an influence and one I still see in my work today. As an undergrad I was really excited about the work of Egon Schiele, Goya, and Alice Neel. 

Mill City
2021, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 24"

S-F: Your daily drawing practice with oil pastels is both impressive and an inspiration! How did this get started and how does it impact your other work?

KL: Awe thanks. This practice started with the pandemic. Being at home so much made me want to create smaller, more intimate work. I also thought of the drawings as a preliminary step towards larger paintings. Then, I fell in love with the oil pastels and it kind of evolved into its own thing.  Oil pastels are so physical. It’s not like painting with a brush – there is nothing that separates my hand from the material. Perhaps this visceral process is a healthy antidote to all that time on Zoom. 
Then the wildfires started. I was deeply moved by the destruction. The smoke was a constant reminder of the loss of Detroit (Oregon), a place we have visited every summer since I was a kid. I found a photo from that fire and drew it. Noticing that the color was off, I drew it again. Then again to capture a more accurate feeling. After that, I just kept drawing the same scene almost daily. It kind of became a meditation on the fires. I’m not all that confident with my use of color, so it also became a way to explore different approaches to color. I mimicked other artists’ palettes, tried manipulating the colors digitally before drawing, and aimed to connect color with my moods. I tried to make ugly and cheerful and dreamy color palettes.

Wildfire
2021,  24" x 36"

So, the oil pastels began as sketches (and still are), but have also evolved to include this meditation on our place in nature, wildfires, and climate change. The drawings have made my paintings more layered, playful, and abstract. The thick oil pastel drawings have really highlighted how luminous thin layers of acrylic can be. The brush strokes, pours, washes, and scrapes take on a new, exciting character in the paintings. Sometimes chance and other times control dictate my actions and process is always a part of the work’s meaning.

An oil pastel sketch from a series of daily drawings.

What commitment looks like.

S-F: I’m drawn to what I can only describe as the magical realism in your paintings. Sometimes it manifests itself as a blend of very specific places bathed in supernatural light and color; at other times you invent vast spaces inhabited by small, somewhat anonymous figures. How did you get started with this series and what can you tell me about it?

KL: So, I started drawing and painting landscapes back at Caldera in 2005. Despite trying my hardest to make serious, realistic pieces they have always had a playful quality to them. The trees kind of dance, I think it’s just how my intuitive hand wants to depict them. I then moved to Wisconsin to go to grad school and watched my work become more nostalgic. All the paintings I created there were specific places I was missing and emblematic of events I didn’t want to forget. When I returned to Oregon that nostalgia shifted to an exploration of mankind’s place in nature. I was trying to seek out what makes the Pacific Northwest unique and where that fits into the larger discussion/ history of Landscape painting. I painted specific places, locations tied to NW literature, and collaged amalgamations of places. Geometric abstractions sometimes embodied the spirit or sound of a place.

Steam Clouds
2021, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 24"

A few years back, I took stock of my past work to better understand my trajectory. I noticed a through line of light in my work, so I pursued it more with paintings of night skies, fires, and fireworks. The fireworks paintings were partially sparked by a conversation I had with another painter about imagination versus creativity. I had mentioned that I love the moment when your logical mind steps aside to let your imagination take the wheel. Like when you are watching fireworks and your eyes relax and you can almost imagine the lights are tiny sparks a few inches from your nose. We all know they aren’t, but the contrast of the light against the night sky can trick our perception in just the right way.

Green Fireworks
2019, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 48"

Anyway, that conversation helped inspire my interest in light and other ephemeral parts of nature as painting subjects. Some people may not realize the complexity enveloped in landscape paintings. Our psychology and sense of identity is strongly tied to the place we call home. Dreamy and mysterious, landscapes can hold our deepest fears and enchanting hopes.  A season or time of day can shift the mood. Landscapes can be a symbol of commodity as well as the sublime. Our past and futures are tied to landscapes. The Group of Seven Artist, Walter J. Philips once said “A landscape painting is essentially emotional in origin. It exists as a record of an effect in nature whose splendor has moved a human heart, and according as it is well or ill done it moves the hearts of others.” I do not take lightly the subject I am pursuing, but I often try to amplify what magic is already in a place. The way I move the paint or mix the colors heightens the mood. This reminds me of another Canadian painter, Emily Carr, who once said “Do not try to do extraordinary things but do ordinary things with intensity.” I feel that if my work can mirror (even just a little of) the wonder in nature and get the viewer interested in sublime places, then empathy will grow and spark positive changes for our environment. 
​
As for the figures in my recent paintings, I am secretly always thinking of the figure. My undergrad thesis was all large-scale portraits. I have taught figure drawing for 14 years, so I know and love the history and psychology wrapped up in the figure. In my recent paintings, the figures stand in for the viewer. That’s why they are anonymous – so they can be anyone and everyone at the same time. They are often lonely or contemplative or awkwardly interacting with nature. This kind of mirrors myself and how I feel outdoors. 

"In my recent paintings, the figures stand in for the viewer. That’s why they are anonymous – so they can be anyone and everyone at the same time." - Larson

Above:
The Abyss
2021, acrylic on canvas, 24" x 36"

Below:
Breitenbush Hot Springs
2021, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 24"

S-F: When I was visiting your studio you talked about becoming obsessed with a theme in your work (haunted places, for example), but also wanting the freedom to move on when it feels right to do so. Can you describe that process in your work?

KL: I think of painting all the time, every day, but my work comes in spurts between teaching, mom-ing, wife-ing, and acting as general contractor to our ongoing house rehab. These short bursts force me to act quickly and take breaks, which allows for an unexpected freshness. I am now more likely to notice and leave a gorgeous drip or accidental wash than I was when I was younger with endless time to overwork a painting. Why was I saying this? I guess I just wanted to point out my process since it kind of explains why I so often work from intuition. 
I feel lucky that I have found a concept in my work that allows me the freedom to explore, invent, and play with a variety of subjects and varied paint applications. My paintings often belong to small series of 10 – 20 pieces centered around a subject like fireworks, celestial bodies, moths, etc. Some subjects I try once but don’t revisit because it either failed completely or felt dishonest or was complete with just the one piece. I know that my interests and concerns connect all my work, so I’m not too worried about whether a series will fit into my larger oeuvre. I work intuitively a lot, then critique my ideas in order to decide if I want to move forward with them or let them fail. And I love every part of this process.

The Witch House
2021, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 40"

S-F: You seem to love to invent and have an ability to get what's in your head onto a canvas or piece of paper. Can you talk about how that skill developed and how you see it in relation to your work now?

KL: I do love to invent and follow my imagination, but it can’t be too hokey or ingenuine. In school I learned about ready-mades and this got me questioning what defines paint. Could caulking or tar or fur be considered paint as long as it was on canvas? This led me to experiment with those materials as well as beads, thread, beans, and other non traditional painting supplies. With all my inventing, I try to make everything I add to my paintings count - no frivolous additions. I had some great teachers who helped me find the courage to try things out. If a piece goes south, I can always paint it out. Reworking something often adds a sense of history to the surface. It’s kind of the embodiment of what Arvie Smith once told me about painting – that ‘things always get worse before they get better’. As a viewer of art, I seek out that history, that evidence of struggle. So, to me that skill of self-expression has come from my natural curiosity, then was developed through trial and error over years of practice and critique. Always seeking that kind of art honesty.

Rapture
2021, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 24"

S-F: ​Who are you currently looking at (alive or dead)?

KL: As a teacher I have a huge list of artists that I enjoy and love to share with my students: Alice Neel, John Singer Sargent, Mickalene Thomas, Elizabeth Peyton, and so on.  As far as artists I connect with in my own work: Georgia O’Keeffe, Lucinda Parker, and Michael Brophy come to mind. In graduate school, I was given an assignment of writing about an artist from each century since 1500 that I align my artwork with. I can’t remember all of them, but I saw my work connecting to the poetic nature of William Blake, the Romanticism of Casper David Friedrich, and the playful relationship with nature of Charles Burchfield. The color and materiality of paint in Van Gogh's or Frankenthaler's work also resonates with me. The Group of Seven is also an influence. William Mackinnon, Kim Dorland, Robyn O’Neil, and Dan Attoe are contemporary artists I have come across recently and whose work I adore.

S-F: What's next for you?

KL: I have a solo show of my drawings at the Newport Visual Art Center from August 7th through the end of September. Also, I'm in a group show at AMcE Creative Arts Gallery in Seattle during March of 2022. 

Below are a few more shots from Larson's studio walls. You can also follow these links to see more of her work:

Kendra Larson's Website

Augen Gallery

Kendra Larson on Instagram

Above and below:
A wall of works in progress.