ELOISE LARSON | WEED, CALIFORNIA

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2018  
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Hopkins Art Center, Seeing Clearly, Minneapolis, MN
- Dab Art, Empire of Dirt, Ventura, CA
- Richmond Art Center, Small Works, Richmond, CA 
- Liberty Arts Gallery, Oddly Regional Collective, Yreka, CA
- Richmond Art Center, Member’s Show, Richmond, CA

2017  
- Berkeley Art Center, Group Exhibition, Berkeley, CA
- Berkeley Art Center, With Liberty and Justice for Some, Berkely, CA
  
- Turtle Bay Gallery, West Coast Bennial, Redding, CA
- East Bay Open Studios, Group Exhibition, Berkeley, CA

2016  
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Siskiyou Art Museum, Form, Dunsmuir, CA
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Ridley Gallery, Confluence, Rocklin, CA

2014
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Well Street Art Co., Transmission, Fairbanks, AK
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Siskiyou Art Museum, Circle Show, Dunsmuir, CA
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Liberty Arts Gallery, Women Who Know Alaska, Yreka, CA

2013
- SOLO EXHIBIT - O’Hanlon Center for the Arts, The Great Ocean, Mill Valley, CA

2012
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Liberty Arts Gallery, The Great Ocean, Yreka, CA

2011
- SOLO EXHIBIT - UAA Gallery, The Great Ocean, Anchorage, AK 

2007
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Well Art Co, Alayavijana, Fairbanks, AK

2005
- SOLO EXHIBIT - College of the Siskiyous Gallery, Women We Know, Weed, CA

2004 
- Well Street Art Co, June Show, Fairbanks, AK

2003 
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Bear Gallery, Three-Thousand-Great-Thousandfold World, Fairbanks, AK

2002  
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Well Street Art Co., Make a Hole in Emptiness, Fairbanks, AK
- Bear Gallery, 64th Parallel Show, Fairbanks, AK

2000
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Grant Hall Gallery, Life is an Outfit!, Anchorage, AK

1999
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Fine Arts Gallery, UAF, Life is an Outfit!, Fairbanks, AK

1998
- Decker/Morris Gallery, University of Alaska Statewide Faculty Art Exhibit, Anchorage, AK

1997
- UAF Fine Arts Gallery, Graduate Student Show, Fairbanks, AK 

1996
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Well Art Co, Alayavijana, Fairbanks, AK - UAF Fine Arts Gallery, Graduate Student Show, Fairbanks, AK - Bear Gallery, Show of Independence, Fairbanks, AK - Bear Center Gallery, Interior Artisans Show, Fairbanks, AK - Site 250 Gallery, Group Exhibition, Fairbanks, AK - Bear Gallery, Interior Artisans Show, 64th Parallel Show, Fairbanks, AK - Bear Center Gallery, Gold Pan Exhibition, Fairbanks, AK

1995
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Site 250, Solo Show, Fairbanks, AK - Nature’s Gallery, Alaska Artists’ Guild Show, Anchorage, AK - UAF Museum Auction Show, Group Exhibition, Fairbanks, AK - Collector Art Gallery, Gold Pan Exhibition, Washington. DC

1994
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Bear Gallery, When Your Father Dies…, Fairbanks, AK - Bear Gallery, 64th Parallel Show, Fairbanks, AK - UAF Museum, Contemporary Arts Show, Fairbanks, AK

1993
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Arts on Grand, Solo Show, Spencer, IA - Anchorage Museum of History and Art, Earth Fire and Fiber Show, Anchorage, AK1995
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Site 250, Solo Show, Fairbanks, AK - Nature’s Gallery, Alaska Artists’ Guild Show, Anchorage, AK - UAF Museum Auction Show, Group Exhibition, Fairbanks, AK - Collector Art Gallery, Gold Pan Exhibition, Washington. DC

1992
- New Horizons Gallery, Fairbanks Show, Fairbanks, AK - Bear Gallery, Drawing from Experience Show, Fairbanks, AK - Bear Gallery, Beyond Furniture Show, Fairbanks, AK - Bear Gallery, Interior Artisans Show, Fairbanks, AK

1990
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Fine Arts Gallery UAF, On the Lighter Side, Fairbanks, AK

1988
- SOLO EXHIBIT - Bear Gallery, Paradigms in Perception, Fairbanks, AK - SOLO EXHIBIT - Fine Arts Gallery, Visions and Memories, Fairbanks, AK

ARTIST STATEMENT

Choosing not to live or make art in the mainstream, for 22 years I lived in Alaska. There, I exhibited and taught art in urban and remote environments. It was right to move when I found a spiritual and geographic home in Northern California. My work transformed from outward to inward expression.

Living, I collect. If an image, an object, a word or a thought nudges me, I save it. Sitting still with their suggestions, the essence of my work arises. Creating disparate images in a range of mediums, I seek to portray life’s connections. Content, form and process are in a constant state of inquiry and discovery. Altering these components to develop a new result excites me.Now, I purposefully turn towards those things that need attention. I found it too easy to look away in discomfort and look towards in pleasure. Can I manipulate the viewer’s perception of an image?

I used to think the ‘something’ was making art. Now I understand that making art is an expression of that ‘something’.

CURATORIAL EXPERIENCE

1987 - 1999 - UAF Art Gallery, Fairbanks, AK 2009 - Liberty Arts, Yreka, CA

ELOISE LARSON

For 40 years, I called myself a painter…

Born and raised in Iowa in the middle of the 20 th century limited my experience of the world. Yet, somehow there was always a “need to do something” that hadn’t been done. What was ‘It’ that needed to be done? By the age of sixteen, I was sure I was an artist. ‘Plagued’ with ideas and driven by a need to do this “something”, I was constantly creating. Everything was plausible. At twenty I was painting seriously.

Life often attempts to distract me: childbirth at seventeen, clinical death at twenty-one, divorce at twenty-five, a career in education, remarriage, parenting, grand parenting, geographic location and Buddhist discipleship. Unable to ignore the persistent nagging of my life’s intention, all of these “barriers” became doors to new ways of doing. There is no gap between life and art, when I move forward.

Midway through my master’s work, I explored the painterly approach to monotype. The transparent quality of the monotype layers transferred directly into my paintings. As the process became readily apparent in the paintings, the surface became equal to, if not more important than the subject matter. Areas of the underpainting and raw canvas were exposed. The canvas became filled with brilliant drips and washes of running, transparent, translucent and thick opaque color. The surface began to dissolve.

Not only did the paintings themselves change, but the way I saw the world changed. The rules of perspective no longer made sense. Just as our theories of time and space have developed since the Renaissance, so has our way of looking at the physical world. Nothing is static. Things do not have a fixed place in our sight. Bodies are in constant flux which allows us to have a multi-dimensional view. We become aware of the wholeness of a being.

In the mid-nineties I began visiting the Shasta Abbey, a Zen Buddhist monastery in northern California. Purchasing a small mountainous parcel on an old ranch, nearby, I spent my summers in forested seclusion, becoming still and focused. It no longer made sense to paint and draw images of people. As a fledging Buddhist practitioner, I was seeing octagons in everything. Pure and empty, they rippled across a sun beam in the forest or glinted amid the dust floating in a beam of light. In a Dharma talk, I heard, “Make a hole in emptiness…”. Ignorant of what this could mean, I recognized its truth. Masking off pure white octagons, I then filled the space around them with marks, moving automatically. I sought to bypass my years of critical training as an artist. No longer able to find answers by recreating what I saw, I turned inward and trusted that the images would come.

My exhibition experience began in 1971. Since 1988, I have orchestrated over 40 solo shows, preferring the freedom of expression that public galleries allow. Working towards a show means concentrating on new research, peeling off additional layers that obscure what I seek, while allowing me to explore and alter a specific process and medium. These exhibitions are the incubators for my work. As I build each show, ideas arise, abide, change and often pass away. This distillation leaves only what is necessary in the expression.

My experience of “life is art” moved my vision from outward looking to inward reflection and my work from capturing the surface to responsive expression. Now, I work figuratively as well as non- representationally. In painting printing, photography and digital renditions, content, form and process are in a constant state of inquiry and discovery. Altering these components to develop a new result excites me. As I live, I collect. Without asking why, if an image, an object, a word or a thought nudges me, I save it. These are the big data for my work. Sitting still among their suggestions, the essence of my work arises and my sight clears.

I was a painter practicing Buddhism. Now, I am a Buddhist who paints. My work is the expression of my practice, continuing to transform as reality reveals its true nature. Truth is what I seek. My images attempt to register this dynamic. Once the marks are laid down, I move on, able only to record a glimpse of a present moment as it passes. Stepping out of the way, the ‘something’ becomes apparent.

EDUCATION

Associates Degree, Platte College, Columbus, NE, 1977 BS in Education, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, 1979 MFA in Painting, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK, 1999

GROUPS AND ORGANIZATIONS

Founder and Director: UAF National Art Institute, Fairbanks, AK 1997

AWARDS

1999 
- Fellowship, Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, NY

1998 
- MFA Fellowship, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK

1989 - 1995
- Artist Opportunity Grants, Alaska State Council on the Arts

1987
- Fellowship, Hambidge Center for the Arts, Rabun Gap, GA

REPRESENTATION

2019 - Present Dab Art Co., Los Angeles, CA