Larissa Lockshin paints verdant abstractions on unprimed, hand-dyed satin. With pearly fabric as her canvas, Lockshin suggests landscapes and horizons, balancing crude wood carving and matte textures with a vivid, romantic color palette. Lockshin’s practice has evolved to hand-dyed fabrics and hand-carved frames that blur the lines between painting, drawing and sculpture. Her hand conjures hearts, stars, birds, petals, quivering grasses are tugged in opposition as they dance on luminous supports. The gestures tend toward soft ocellated forms, mottled leopardine eyes, smudgy vegetal blots in a garden. These wavering strokes mimic the shape of thoughts, waves of emotion, as if the wind might change course at any moment, carrying wisps of cinder or a hint of morning frost.
b. 1992, Toronto, Canada