Things People Do

Mernet Larsen’s exhibition “Things People Do” is at James Cohan Gallery through February 21. Larsen, seventy-five, works in what she has called “old-fashioned narrative paintings … statements of longing.” “What I use are these perspectival ploys—diverse perspective, parallel perspective,” she told The Huffington Post last year. “You’re always sort of moving around inside the painting; you can never quite figure out where you’re standing, so you kind of absorb it. Matisse does that too for me too. And a lot of Japanese art, from the twelfth century particularly. They bring you inside and outside the space, you have no particular position. You can’t quite get your bearings. And yet, I want you to have a sense of orient, a sense of mass, a sense of depth.”

Mernet Larsen, Alphie, 2015, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 71 1/8″ x 39 1/2″.

Punch, 2016, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 68 ½” x 61 ½”.

Reading in Bed, 2015, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 60″ x 38 1/4″.

Skydiver, 2016, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 65″ x 53″.