"Super Ls" Part II: Mernet Larsen and Jonathan Butt at Regina Rex

Mernet Larsen
Committee, 2007
Acrylic, mixed media on canvas
36 x 68

One of several excellent shows up now, Mernet Larsen and Jonathan Butt are deliciously paired by the alternative, artist-run space Regina Rex.  Butt's work is new to me (and good; materially related but not at all the same as Fabienne Lassere at Jeff Bailey). I've known Larsen's since 2003, thus she handily occupies the position of Super L (ref. post above). An unusual blend of Constructivism and Japanese painting, her compositions bend and twist space (and the figures within them) into new visual conundrums. Larsen is as engaging an intellect as she is a painter; I have been privileged to work with her in several capacities including co-curating Dragon Veins in 2006 for the University of South Florida's Contemporary Art Museum, a show that presented works by Frances Barth, Chie Fueki and Zhang Hongtu, among others.

This painting is one of my favorite Larsens. It lifts the airless immobility of a faculty meeting into meditative transcendence, a journey from a scroll.

There's much, much more at http://www.mernetlarsen.com. She also shows with Marcia Wood in Atlanta, and Mindy Solomon in St. Petersburg, FL. Update: this show is Pick of the Week at Artcritical, but I can no longer find it on the website to link!

Here is another I've always loved, from 2002 (54 inches square).