Arts Walk cover artist offers a fresh take on relationship between humans and nature

Mark Larson’s art, featured on the cover of the fall Arts Walk map, is set in a magical world where lilies grow in the snow, lions wear golden crowns, and a polar bear floats on a car near the Statue of Liberty.

But the Vancouver, Washington painter’s work is very much about this world.

“My work is really about man’s relation to the environment,” he told The Olympian. “As someone who’s spent a lot of time outdoors my whole life, I’m very tied to nature and concerned with what happens with it.”

The cover image, the oil-on-panel “Fire and Ice,” depicts a close encounter between a hiker and a whale, but what leaps from the image are the lilies blooming in the foreground.

“With the Arctic melting as it is, I imagined what would happen if flowers started popping up,” Larson said.

“It’s a hopeful painting,” he added. “I hope nature is resilient enough that it will rebound and find its equilibrium.”

“Fire and Ice” was commissioned by the city of Olympia after a jury selected Larson as the cover artist. It is bold and graphic. Much of the artist’s work evokes the work of some of Europe’s old masters, using rich, deep colors and sometimes gold leaf.

One such piece is the just-completed “Emissaries,” which shows haloed flamingoes visiting a cathedral in Florence, Italy.

“It’s a very magical and surreal scene,” said Larson, who describes his work as “imaginative realism.” “It speaks to nature being an emissary to us and trying to speak to us so that we’ll appreciate it.”

Influenced by his passion for art history and his travels in Europe, “Emissaries” is among several large paintings in his Arts Walk show at the State of the Arts Gallery, which also will include prints and holiday ornaments. Other pieces in the show depict a moose with smokestack antlers and a polar bear stranded near Ellis Island.

Larson’s use of unexpected imagery impressed the Arts Walk jury, said Angel Nava of the city’s Parks, Arts and Recreation Department.

“He has these really powerful juxtapositions in his work,” she told The Olympian. “The jury was really inspired by it.”

Larson, a Portland native who recently moved to Vancouver from Tacoma, is the rare cover artist living outside Thurston County. To be considered, an artist must have shown work in Arts Walk in the past two years; there is no geographic requirement, Nava said.

Larson’s work has established quite a presence here since his first Arts Walk show last fall, a solo showcase at The Washington Center for the Performing Arts.

That show made a splash. After talking to people with the city, Center Gallery director Brittania Kerschner encouraged Larson to apply to be the cover artist.

Over the summer, his “In the Tropics” — in which a polar bear comes nose to beak with a tropical bird — was chosen for the city’s collection of traffic-box wraps.

His work also can be seen at the RiverSea Gallery in Astoria, Oregon, and in the prestigious 10x10x10xTieton in Tieton, Washington, a curated show that attracts applicants from around the world.

Mark Larson

What: Larson explores the relationship between humans and nature in his paintings, including “Fire and Ice,” featured on the cover of the fall Arts Walk map. That painting and other recent works by Larson of Vancouver, Washington, will be on view for Arts Walk.

Where: State of the Arts Gallery and Gifts, 500 Washington St. SE, Olympia

When: Larson will be on hand to talk about his art and sign copies of the Arts Walk poster from 5 to 10 p.m. Friday and from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday. The show will continue through October.

More information: marklarsonart.com

This story was originally published October 2, 2018 at 5:58 PM.