Exhibition showcases retiring art prof’s career

Larry Holmes : “My work is representational, but I don’t see it as being realistic.”

3:48 p.m., March 30, 2004--Larry Holmes has undergone many stylistic changes in his long artistic career, but although the UD art professor and former chairperson of the art department has abandoned his three-dimensional canvases and primary colors for a softer style and more subdued palette, he maintains that a common thread binds all his work.

Currently curating a 40-year retrospective, the 31-year-veteran professor will put that “common thread” theory to the public test in a one-man show that follows his career from 1964-2004.

Titled “Larry Holmes, 40 Years of Painting: A Retrospective,” the exhibit will run from Tuesday, March 30, through Sunday, May 9, in the University Gallery, and will showcase 17 oil and alkyd paintings, one pastel, one lithograph and one piece of sculpture from the four-decade period.

Motivated by Holmes’ impending retirement, the retrospective, besides highlighting Holmes’ painting career, also pays homage to his three decades of service to the University.

“Oddly enough, when I came here in ’73, I was doing these constructed geometric paintings, which were high-relief, off-the-wall big things—very graphic and painted mostly in primary colors,” Holmes said. “But, as time went on, that work began to soften a little bit, and the painting on it got to be a lot more complex and a lot more pattern-oriented. In my own mind, it’s a steady evolution and not a radical jump, but it may not look that way in the exhibit because the space isn’t really big enough to show a good progression.”

Faced with 40 years of work and limited wall space, Holmes said that he solved the dilemma by carefully choosing one piece of work from each key phase in his career, which began while he was finishing undergraduate school at Kansas State University.

“Allegory for an Opera,” by Larry Holmes

“I’m showing about one painting from each primary group of work until I’ve gotten to the most recent paintings, of which there are a fair amount,” he explained. “But, from those early periods, it’s one painting from ’64, one from ’68, one from ’71, one from ’73 and one from about ’77, until it jumps to the early ‘80s. That looks like a pretty radical leap, but given all the work in between, it really isn’t as radical as it seems.”

Holmes, who calls his work representational, says that he is inspired by carefully composed still lifes and their historical use in painting. But while he often employs such standbys as statuary, animals and plants in his contemporary work, he says that he strives to steer clear of clichéd images and create a deeper message for the viewer.

“My work is representational, but I don’t see it as being realistic,” he explained. “[Realism] implies something different to me, because that’s about observing the natural world. Although the objects in my paintings are from the real world, they are hardly ever located in the real world at the same place at the same time.

“I keep a library of photographic images to work from, and when I’m ready to start painting, I begin to go through things and look for images that make some sort of sense in how they work together both conceptually and pictorially. It’s sort of a patching together of objects, and there’s a fair amount of planning and drawing that goes on before the painting process ever starts.”

All works in the retrospective are for sale, as is the pastel that Holmes donated to the silent auction, which is open for a sneak preview from 4:30-7:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 30, in conjunction with the retrospective opening.

The University Gallery is located on the second floor of Old College at the corner of Main Street and North College Avenue. Gallery hours are 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Wednesday; and 1-4 p.m., Saturday and Sunday; closed Mondays. The show is free and open to the public. For more information, call 831-8242.

Article by Becca Hutchinson
Photo by Kathy Atkinson

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