James Gortner Art

SALI SWALLA Moonlit Songs Oil and mixed media on panel 10 x 10 inches Framed: 11 x 11 inches

Kevin Larmon, (American, b. 1955), 1985-1986, oil on canvas; hand signed, titled, and dated on the reverse Provenance: bear a Curt Marcos Gallery label verso This is one of a pair we are offering for sale Kevin Larmon (1955-) is an American artist and was assistant monitor of painting at Syracuse University. Kevin Larmon was born in Syracuse, New York in 1955. He grew up on a small horse farm. Larmon's mother was a school secretary while his father was a construction worker. He graduated from Binghamton University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and moved to New York City as an undergraduate senior, where he finished his schooling at the New York Studio School. In the late 1970s, Larmon played guitar for Mudmen, a three piece band in the East Village of New York City with Craig Gillis playing bass, Mike Caffes playing drums, and percussionist Jill Burkhart. Mudmen played in venues such as CBGB, Danceteria, A7 (bar), Pyramid Club, Mudd Club, and The Limelight. Larmon started making still life paintings in 1979. He has also worked with atmospheric drawings and paintings since 1989, many of which are made on canvas or wood. In 2009, he began to paint his cell paintings. Larmon's paintings are built up through layers of collage and paint. Most famously, Larmon's work includes collages of gay male pornography that have been painted over with images that exist somewhere in between abstraction and form. These images are often anatomical. Conceptually, Larmon's work deals with issues such as the male body image and fascist culture. Similarly, Larmon's drawings on wood deal with ambiguously anatomical and abstracted forms. His work has been associated with the post-conceptualism and neo-conceptual art movements, which were prominent aspects of exhibitions at Gallery Nature Morte and with Tricia Collins and Richard Milazzo shaping the nature of painting after the rise of conceptual art. Larmon was also associated with Feature Inc., a gallery that was first established in Chicago in 1984. In August 1988, the gallery's director, known as Hudson, moved Feature Inc. to New York City. Larmon's first exhibition with Feature Inc. occurred in 1987 in Chicago, Illinois. Over the years, Hudson and Larmon would work together on many exhibitions. As a young artist, Larmon spent his Thursdays working to sustain Gallery Nature Morte together with the gallery owners, Alan Becher and Peter Nagy, when the gallery existed in New York City. Larmon was heavily influenced by his contemporaries at Gallery Nature Morte such as Robin Weglinski, Joel Otterson, and Steven Parrino. Other influential artists include Oliver Wasow, Robert Gober, Nancy Shaver, Carter Hodgkin, and Steven Wolfe. Larmon also drew inspiration from Rembrandt, Giorgio Morandi, Jackson Pollock, and Agnes Martin. During his time as a professor at Syracuse University, Larmon made an impact on many emerging artists including Deborah Roberts and Paul Weiner. Larmon participated in Aperto 86 at the 1986 Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy, where his paintings were exhibited at the Corderie at the Arsenal. From 1983–2013, Larmon was invited to exhibit in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York; Feature Inc, New York, New York; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona; the University Art Museum at the University of California, Berkeley; the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut; Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Visual Arts Museum, New York, New York; the Morris Museum, Morristown, New Jersey; Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, now the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio; Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado; Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, New Jersey; and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2013, Larmon was included in a group show at the Leslie Sacks Gallery in Los Angeles, California alongside artists Christo, Jim Dine, Pablo Picasso, Chuck Close, Howard Hodgkin, Jasper Johns, Marino Marini, Henri Matisse, Karel Nel, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, David Hockney, Robert Rauschenberg, and Sebastião Salgado. Exhibitions curated by Tricia Collins and Richard Milazzo Still Life With Transaction: Former Objects, New Moral Arrangements, and the History of Surfaces took place at International with Monument in New York from March 28 – April 21, 1984. Larmon was accompanied by artists Alice Albert, Ericka Beckman, Alan Belcher, Ross Bleckner, Barry Bridgwood, Sarah Charlesworth, Wendy Galavitz, Judy Geib, Jim Jacobs, Stephen Lack, Andrew Masullo, Peter McCaffrey, Jan Mohlman, Peter Nadin, Peter Nagy, Joel Otterson, Richard Prince, Steven Parrino, Tyler Turkle, and Laurie Simmons. Natural Genre: From the Neutral Subject to the Hypothesis of World Objects took place at Florida State University Gallery & Museum in Tallahassee, Florida from Aug. 31-Sept. 30, 1984. Larmon was accompanied by artists Jane Bauman, Ericka Beckman, Alan Belcher, Gretchen Bender, Ross Bleckner, Tom Brazleton, Barry Bridgwood, Sarah Charlesworth, Carroll Dunham, Robert Garratt, Mark Innerst, Louise Lawler, Allan McCollum, Peter Nadin, Peter Nagy, Joseph Nechvatal, Steven Parrino, Louis Renzoni, Meyer Vaisman, Oliver Wasow, James Welling, David Wojnarowicz, Michael Zwack...

A summer meadow strewn with wild flowers, re-interpreted to create an effect like a tapestry or sampler. Mixed media but mainly oil, on canvas. Framed in a white tray frame - framed ...

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Spanish artist Xavi Carbonell born 1971, actively paints like a child as an adult, and leaves all of his pieces "untitled" so that each viewer can create their own story. The resulting work is fun, fresh, and powerful. The play-fullness of the pieces are enjoyed by both children and adults and some describe the work as a type of Rorschach test since everyone “sees” and smiles at something different. As we view this piece our imagination explodes and we wonder is this a painting of a party, a playground, a family dinner, an office meeting, a busy street? The answer is different for everyone. This mixed media on paper which includes oil paint, spray paint, graphite, permanent marker, oil pastel, and pen uses...

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This complex, yet abstract artwork is a typical piece by Seati, exploring themes of the human condition, truth and fantasy. This bold composition on fabriano paper...

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Spanish artist Xavi Carbonell born 1971, actively paints like a child as an adult, and leaves all of his pieces "untitled" so that each viewer can create their own story. The result...

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