Larry Leach

For over 30 years, my work has been concerned with the rendering of the landscape. My favorite theme is the first strong light of dawn and the last strong rays of sunset that rake across the landscape.

Many of the paintings draw on the sky, the ocean, the beach and the grasses — horizontal and vertical stasis and movement reflecting light and shadow.  Fields seen through a forest also are a compelling subject for me.  These vistas are seldom peopled; there is no indication of the human touch with the exception of the Mule Road series from early rural past on my grandparent’s Louisiana farm.  Most works have no human history, the history is of memory ... time has left the mule roads behind except in childhood.

I appropriate some of the qualities of nineteenth century Impressionist and Realist painting.  Corot’s method of working from memory or from brief sketches is a process that I utilize, frequently working in the studio from memory myself.  Corot was the first artist to separate himself from nature by painting from memory.  Paintings created from memory become iconographic and at times highly abstracted.

The idea for the Counterpoint series came dually from seeing Sal Pecararo’s wonderful piece composed of 365 six inch square paintings of the sky — his “recordings” installed on one wall made a masterful synopsis of time in its many moods; simultaneously I saw Jennifer Bartlett’s gridded landscape again consuming an entire wall with segments of space.  I began with 16 inch squares, expanded to 20 inch.  The series begun in 1993 has contracted to a scale of eight inch squares and the repetition has expanded to include vertical and horizontal rectangles hung in series of three to eight that scale 20 inch by 72 to 96 inches.  The most recent series has expanded again to 30 x 96 inches.

Counterpoint is a lyrical exploration of the light over the ocean or an open expanse of beach; hung in series, the eye as it moves up, down, over and back has sensed Proust’s ephemeral time.  Seen as a totality the work has an ebb and flow like the ocean and time itself.

I also have been fascinated by the light in Inness’ paintings and that has had an impact on how I paint the air.

The act of painting is as important as the play of light in the sky and sea and in the form and color of trees and grasses . . .  the relationships of marks of color in relationship to other marks.  A painting is developed with a lamination of transparent oil glazes.  I work with paint to achieve a dynamic between positive and negative space.  This push/pull is created by overlaying warm over cold and vice versa so the space always pops or has a “visual bounce” as Hans Hoffman would say.  I retain a huge influence from the technique of Cezanne who was a master of push/pull in his application of paint.

The painting technique of layering contrasting color oil glaze over glaze in the classic wet on wet technique gives each piece a shimmering quality, dazzling the eye.  When one approaches intimate space one sees brushstrokes of color in contrast and complement.