'Departure (after El Lissitzky)' (2019) translates the geometries and palette of its El Lissitzky source composition into a slanting, unsettling depiction of a group of laborers moving vehicles and—absurdly—a small...
"Departure (after El Lissitzky)" (2019) translates the geometries and palette of its El Lissitzky source composition into a slanting, unsettling depiction of a group of laborers moving vehicles and—absurdly—a small Post Office building, within a wintry arctic landscape. Rendered in parallel perspective, the composition is built on diagonal axes that suggest a destabilizing state of perpetual motion. Departure lacks the horizon line or vanishing point that would allow the viewer to orient oneself relative to the space of the painting. Instead, the viewing experience is one of absorbing and adjusting to spatial dissonance. Larsen’s compositions suggest perception has the ability to transform the way that we see the world around us. By shifting the way we prioritize visual information, this new body of work reinforces Larsen’s long standing conviction that paintings may “restore faith in the possibility that the world is still ungrasped by consciousness.”