Larry Grōb

Artist Statement/ why I do what I do…

There’s a place where art and a sustainable outlook on our planet intersect…where I believe they inspire each other. And that’s the place I occupy, as a pastelist with a passion to fuel ecological awareness and encourage us to approach our surroundings with a lighter hand.

It’s a thoughtful, and at the same time powerful place to work.

On the one hand, when I render a landscape it says something to me about a very specific place. It may convey stillness, inviting reflection. Or suggest drama, showing the play of sun and clouds and changing weather. Or depict a clash of irresistible forces, as sea meets coast. It may allude to the geology underfoot, or to invisible processes of nature taking place before our eyes.

At the same time, though, that landscape says something about places all across this thin skin surrounding our planet, the places we see being mere archetypes for those we don’t.

When I’m working, I draw from a number of influences: graphic design, plein air painting, cartography, ecology, and nature spirituality. And if a painting works, it’s because something from this mix shows through, in the light, the color, the flow, the balance of the piece. I do this with a medium I find so direct, so tactile, so gratifyingly like painting with pure pigment. It’s all about the touch, really.

And so, a once young child encouraged by a grandfather painter to stop and look and put brush to paper…now a late-onset serious artist with an oversized environmental consciousness…I’m inspired by the ability of art to inform and engage. I’ll keep pushing to paint our nature with increasing skill and, as I like to think, thoughtfully observed, and sustainably seen.