Dennis Larkins is a jack of all trades but
painting is nearest and dearest to his heart
BY CHRISTY HERON
Date: 07/04/2007
Dennis Larkins
is the real deal, and not just artistically,
but in every sense. After speaking with the
renowned artist for just under an hour, his
energy, drive, and charisma become contagious.
His spirit, talent, and accomplishments are
simply mind-blowing.
Larkins has been
creating for almost 40 years. He has studied
painting at Yale, (yes, Yale), Kansas City
Art Institute, and Colorado University. Along
with legendary promoter Bill Graham, Larkins
essentially invented what is today known as
the outdoor concert. He's been a beloved imagineer
at Walt Disney Studios and Larkins continues
to make a majority of his living in the themed
entertainment business in fact, shortly before
this exhibit opens he will be meeting with
the powers that be at Epcot Center for an
upcoming project.
His art is deeply rooted, widespread,
and powerfully everlasting.
But the latest venture for Larkins
isn't about the stages he's designed for The
Rolling Stones, or his time with Warner Brothers
or Sega Gameworks. It's about a seminal Central
Coast show, consisting of his juxtaposed,
three dimensional, pop surrealist paintings.
He currently shows at two galleries in the
L.A., in one of those, alongside local Arroyo
Grande artist Mark Bryan. That's the reason
SLO is so lucky. Bryan and Larkins became
buddies last year, and now we all reap the
benefits of their friendship.
Like Bryan, Larkins considers
himself a pop surrealist "Mark is more
of a classicist though, my work is more, edgy,
more pop, like Andy Warhol."
All Larkins' pieces are dimensional,
the larger ones taking three to four weeks
to create and the smaller ones about half
that time. "The sculpture portion of
the painting is done completely independent
of the painting." Larkins goes on to
explain that the sculpture is a series of
layers that are superimposed. It starts with
a drawing, and templates are used as well.
The pieces that will be in the Free Range
Art show at Steynberg in San Luis Obispo were
completed in the last couple of years.
But his influences go back
decades. "On the technical side, the
3-D aspect is influenced by my theatrical
career, in stage, television, and film. While
building and designing full scale setsit was
through that process and experimentation that
I realized it would be unbelievably cool to
apply those same techniques to painting."
And 35 years later, he is still working in
the same fashion. Pulp magazines, the era
from the 1940s and 1950s, DC Comics, underground
comics, and Mad Magazine also influence his
art.
The narrative is as open-ended
as they come the story of each piece can be
perceived in a variety of ways, and Larkins
digs it.
"I love people's explanations.
I'm always surprised. "Bumper Crop in
Denial Valley" is often perceived as
a garden piece, but its juxtaposition is that
its dark subject matter can be explained in
a comical way. It has strong political and
environmental implications. The tomatoes have
death masks, and the people have skeleton
faces, and they are standing there pleased
with themselves. It's the 1950s idealism,
twisted and turned on its head and what remains
is the joke of it."
As far as subject matter goes,
you'll likely find skeletons, and aliens.
"They are obscure, obtuse," Larkins
says, "you can read into them what you
wantI consider my paintings 'coded narrative,'
it's like a dream. Metaphor and symbolismthey
require decoding. My perception is the skeletons
are neutral, or positive, and the aliens are
victimsthey represent ultimate creativity
and freedomthat part of ourselves that's free.
The skeletons have a stripped-to-the-bone
appeal and are about truth. Our own mortality
is the truth of our existence."
"Crossroads at Dinosaur
Junction:" "A god-like character
with an oil derrick in one hand and having
a helluva good time. But is he putting in
or taking out?" This is the inherent
conflict, two concepts going up against one
another, and is prevalent in most of Larkins'
pieces.
"Goddess of Sweat - No
Sweat:" "This is a transformative
painting," Larkins explains. The Grace
Kelly-esque image is the goddess, and the
story of life surrounds her, miseries are
in the foreground, and the man and woman were
actually taken from 1940s and 1950s Bengay
advertisements. Another symbolic gesture is
towards the Studebaker, which is a car Larkins
adores, and collects.
"All my art is meant to
use humor, as a way of expressing the human
dilemma," he concluded.
Larkins doesn't plan on slowing
down. He has so much more to give. "I
don't design my paintings, I allow themit's
intuitive. I'm a good mechanic so I can make
it happen."
The Steynberg Gallery is located at 1531
Monterey St. in San Luis Obispo. Dennis Larkins'
exhibition runs through July. The party starts
at 6 p.m. sharp on July 6. Info: 547-0278,
www.steynberggallery.com,
or www.startlingart.com.
Dennis Larkins is something
of an anomaly in the art world. His subject
matter is taken from the kitsch of the 50's
and 60's, but his method is modern and original.
He builds up layers using foam and plastics
to create relief sculptures directly on the
canvas, adding in the help of a clever paintbrush
he achieves his creations. Gone, Daddy, gone.
 
La Luz de Jesus Press Release
Revolutionary designer for Bill Graham Productions
and The Grateful Dead pursues his personal
vision as he creates atomic age dimensional
paintings employing retro, sci-fi, pulp symbolism
and even a little blacklight.
Los Angeles, CA --Think dioramas
on canvas. That’s what comes to mind
when looking at Dennis Larkins’ dimensional
paintings. From any angle, the perspective
remains true, seemingly floating in anti-gravity.
The nose end of a spaceship protrudes from
deep space beckoning viewers to examine the
painting’s edges. Larkins is enjoying
a sculpted-canvas renaissance with twelve
paintings and ten limited editioned handcrafted
prints comprising the exhibition. www.laluzdejesus.com
For four decades Dennis Larkins
persevered along a formative and expansive
path honing his painting skills as a set designer
in the theatrical trades. First, as a scenic
artist at the San Francisco Opera, then the
resident designer for Bill Graham’s
infamous “Day on the Green” and
“Monsters of Rock” events where
he is credited as one of the earliest developers
to use revolutionary new staging concepts
now considered the norm. It was there that
he employed the use of enormous set decorations
like oversized album covers, pyrotechnics
and special effects lighting. Concurrently,
he designed album cover art, posters and other
paraphernalia for bands including The Grateful
Dead. Some of this work is included in the
essential 1987 Abbeyville Press reference
book “Art of Rock.” More recently
other projects include designing for Warner
Brothers Studio Stores, Sega Gameworks, and
exhibits and attractions for Disney and Universal
theme parks.
More detailed information
on the Larkins’ background and painting
technique is available and can be emailed
or faxed immediately upon request. The artist
is also available for phone or live interviews.
Aliens
& Donuts vs. Monsters of Rock
(March 10, 2005)
PCL
linked to The Out Of
This World Art of Dennis Larkins today.
Larkin’s [sic] rock and roll backdrops
are legendary, but it was his non-rock stuff
that had me starring [sic] at the Startling
Art instead of watching BC get taken down
by West Virginia (good luck, you’re
gonna fly like a beagle in the ACC next year).
Sports are stupid, anyway. Aliens, apes, and
donuts; well that’s the stuff dreams
are made of - Homer Simpson’s dreams,
but that’s still okay by me even though
Homer has a lot of goofy republican fans.
I boycott Clear Channel and
complain about Fox and every other shitbag
corporation, but I sometimes watch the Simpsons
and way too much college basketball. That
sort of hypocrisy may explain why it doesn’t
bother me that Larkins whores himself out
to fuckers like Mickey Mouse and Sega for
a living. Besides, Disney can’t really
be much worse than working for a stool drooling
creep like Bill Graham.
...a good counterpoint to the
near overwhelming volume of paintings by Dennis
Larkins, a master, and perhaps sole practitioner,
of Mechanoid Surrealist Americana. These three-dimensional
homages to the tension and terror that are
manifest in a present moment surrounded by
a cliched past and that past's imagnined future
are about as complex as this sentence. But
the complexity born of Larkins' fantastical
renderings are instantaneously understandable
and knowable to each of us in their dualistic
acceptance of life and its joys as twin to
death and its horrors. This is most plainly
captured in the gigantic opus, "Unfinished
Business," but the real cosmic and nearly
transcendental reverberations of post-nuclear
American society are felt most enjoyably in
"Cosmic Kitchen" and "Primates
on Parade," a title anyone on a crowded
sidewalk can likely sympathize with. All of
Larkin's paintings are ripe with confrontation,
whether in the form of an army of robots pillaging
a city, or simply a somber tone settling over
the outskirts of a town, and it is in this
conflict, frequently absurd, that Larkins
offers us a brutally crisp reflection. |
Free
range art
