Door One , 30 x 40 cm. Oil on linen, treated tracing paper, ribbon and soldered wire.

My career began in 1974 as one half of the performance art duo Reindeer Werk. In 1980 I changed to anti-conceptualist painting, part of a movement that eventually came to be known as Low Brow. Finding myself uncomfortably cornered into a genre that appeared to be becoming ever more Disneyfied, I have since branched into an area that appears to be something of a hybrid, standing between pro and contra conceptual camps. I prefer being a hinge to a flat plane.

The Doors Project

The problem for art today is that it is visible - instantly, anytime.

I don't believe that art emerged to be be instantly seen. Working to see it is, and always has been, part and parcel of the art itself.

From this starting point, I began to make a series of pieces not instantly available to the viewer. I started making 'doors' to paintings. Vanity doors that had to be opened first. I then realised that this changed the type of image needed inside, which in turn affected the outside. So I dreamed of a show that would only be Doors - closed doors, until the gallery assistant came out from behind the desk and agreed to open them, one by one, peek by peek.

I keep my Door pieces in my studio securely fastened, opening them occasionally for a visitor to view. They keep their grace that way. 






Dirk Larsen  
12th April 2014

.