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Biography of the Artist Larry Gray was born in Columbia, Tennessee. He studied painting at the University of Georgia and Yale University, and held a teaching position at Humboldt State University, Arcata, California. Gray has had numerous one person and group exhibitions throughout his career in art. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Gray has lived in Northern California, Savannah, Georgia and the mountains of Western North Carolina, where he is frequently encountered on the trails of the Pisgah National Forest. Welcome to LarryGrayStudio.com Art is often more than what it may seem at first glance and this is the case with the work of Larry Gray. Towering clouds, smoky hazes and the light of watery suns appearing through the overcast, are images that seem to predominate. The sky is indeed a major theme of Gray's art, the dynamic of its movement, the search for equilibrium amongst the elements of heat, light and water, played out on the artist's canvas. Yet, as Gray searches for equilibrium amongst the motion of clouds, there is another, easily overlooked and important element of his work. For, more often than not, there is a landscape above which the towering thunderheads collide. It is a particular landscape, one of the imagination, which calls to mind a pastoral Arcadia, an American utopia, a land sparsely inhabited by simple agrarians, living a modest and harmonious life. In the impression of farmer's fields and the hint of rolling hills, there is a longing for "The Golden Age" in Gray's work: a wish to return to the time when men worked close to the land and were in tune with nature. A simpler time, a less troubled and frenetic pace. In this way, Gray's art is subversive of modern culture, it undermines the consumer society, it offers a different perspective. It invites us, perhaps seduces us, to a vision of the American landscape more in line with Thoreau, or Ansel Adams, than with Sam Walton or Donald Trump. There are no strip malls or casinos in Arcady. Pastoral simplicity prevails. Art, as Gray depicts it, is a corrective, a new prescription which allows us to see ourselves more clearly, to see where we are now and to see where we could have been. Be wary though, of "The Golden Age", for dark skies, threatening downpours and smoky hazes, hint at the illusion of the Utopian ideal. For in Gray's striving for equilibrium amongst the clouds, the message subverts itself. There is no perfect idyll, no place without strife, drama or conflict. So stay awhile, enjoy the art on offer, and reflect on the American landscape as it was, is now and what it may become. -Brian Plumley More of Mr. Gray's work can be found at the following galleries: Haen Gallery - Asheville, NC |