Lari Pittman

Lari Pittman 

http://www.art21.org/images/lari-pittman/out-of-the-frost-1986

Biography

Lari Pittman was born in Los Angeles, California in 1952. Pittman received both a BFA (1974) and an MFA (1976) from California Institute of the Arts, Valencia. Inspired by commercial advertising, folk art, and decorative traditions, his meticulously layered paintings transform pattern and signage into luxurious scenes fraught with complexity, difference, and desire. In a manner both visually gripping and psychologically strange, Pittman’s hallucinatory works reference myriad aesthetic styles, from Victorian silhouettes to social realist murals to Mexican retablos. Pittman uses anthropomorphic depictions of furniture, weapons, and animals, loaded with symbolism, to convey themes of romantic love, violence, and mortality. His paintings and drawings are a personal rebellion against rigid, puritanical dichotomies. They demonstrate the complementary nature of beauty and suffering, pain and pleasure, and direct the viewer’s attention to bittersweet experiences and the value of sentimentality in art. Despite subject matter that changes from series to series, Pittman’s deployment of simultaneously occurring narratives and opulent imagery reflects the rich heterogeneity of American society, the artist’s Colombian heritage, and the distorting effects of hyper-capitalism on everyday life.

https://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/pittman/

http://dailyserving.com/2010/10/lari-pittman-at-regen-projects/lp-398/

In this video, Lari Pittman discusses his work. His section starts at 14:30 and ends at 26:30. http://video.pbs.org/video/1239665588/ 

http://www.testpress.net/friezeny2012_day2.html

Lari Pittman's work is wonderfully spontaneous. His paintings are a cocktail of real objects, patterning, vivid colors, typography, and imaginative hybrids of objects and figures. Though his work is a lot to take in, it is not overwhelming. This is because of his fantastic compositions. Every element is balanced and benefits the painting. His paintings are so rich in detail that you have to examine them for hours to appreciate all of their beautiful elements. 

Pittman's paintings are helpful because they show how to organize many crazy elements into a beautiful composition. His wackie work inspires the imagination and brings a smile to your face.