Caroline Larsen

Caroline Larsen Biography

B. 1980, Toronto, Canada – Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA.

Caroline Larsen’s still-life paintings are of elaborate bouquets and equally elaborate vases. She has an icing-thick painting technique where she squeezes paint across the canvas to create a kaleidoscopic composition of her concentrated study of the still-life genre. Flowers, vase and background are all taken over the top with pattern, hue and texture. A majority of the vases in her work are from Longwy, France manufactured during the Art Deco period. These faience, whose overglaze decoration became famous in 1925 during the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts where the term “Art Deco” was coined.
Larsen’s works all start by digitally collaging found images of flowers, vases and psychedelic optical imagery into a flora still-life arrangement. Her newest works reference the optical phenomenon “Magic Eye” where compositions are repeating over and over again, filling the canvas with a densely colored pattern.
Technique is central in Larsen’s painting. Squeezing paint from a bag, she is able to create a unique texture that references textile, craft and embroidery. Lining up multiple colors her bags she is able to extrude rainbow gradients of hue that can only be achieved by this technique. Piling different colors on top of each other in the same bag creates an ombre, where colors seamlessly fade from one to the next.