Larry Francis – Artist Statement
“By The Water’s Edge”
In this, my second show at the SOMA Gallery, my goal is to show the look and feel of Cape May, which is perched between bay, harbor and ocean. Many of the paintings in this exhibition have water as a main feature, showing the wonder of flickering reflections of boats, docks, marsh and sky. In others, the water is just a sliver of dark blue on the horizon. Some paintings feature folks going to a flower stand or sunning themselves in the little park near the harbor.
Paintings have a beautiful quality when the colors are clear, the forms are strong, and the meaning is true. In each of the paintings, I seek to capture a time of day and season, from the orangey rays of a low sun bathing the shore of the harbor, to the darkened silhouettes of trees against a sunset, or the glow of late morning light coming through blossoms in spring.
We painters in our work, are composites of our own past work, the world we see around us, and the others we have learned from. I have been inspired by the early work of Monet, the American artists Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper, and the Dutch painters of the 16th century like Vermeer and Van Ruisdael, Some 20th Century colorist painters like Richard Diebenkorn and Bonnard have also been an inspiration, as have been all painters of light.
In all of these works, I have created a mood that the viewer can feel. The people in the paintings move through this world: going for coffee, walking to the beach or viewing a beautiful place. In one picture, people begin to gather for a picnic by the water’s edge, and in another, a lone figure swims beneath the ocean with creatures of the deep. It is my hope that these works capture, for the viewer, a moment of contemplation and beauty .