Larissa Lockshin b. 1992

Larissa Lockshin’s painting practice is grounded in a sustained investigation of the relationship between image, material, and perception. Rather than treating the surface as a neutral support for representation, she constructs each painting as an interdependent object in which satin, pigment, light, gesture, and frame remain in constant relation. The use of satin is particularly consequential: its reflective surface disrupts the stability of the painted image, allowing light and the viewer’s position to become active participants in the work. Areas of concentrated pigment absorb light while exposed passages of satin reflect it, creating a shifting tension between opacity and luminosity, figure and ground.

This material instability is mirrored in Lockshin’s imagery. Her compositions emerge from an intuitive vocabulary of natural elements: grasses, petals, trees, stars, hearts, and other forms that hover between recognizable reference and abstraction. Rather than depicting landscape, Lockshin draws on its visual language to evoke states of perception and memory, producing images that seem familiar without resolving into a fixed place or narrative.

She dyes and stretches the satin over canvas before directly applying soft pastel and oil pastel to the surface. Through pressure, layering, and dispersion, pigment accumulates and recedes, revealing the ground beneath. She likewise constructs each frame, extending the work’s material logic beyond the painted surface so that it functions not simply as a boundary, but as part of the object.

The resulting works occupy an intentionally unstable position between painting and object, representation and abstraction, surface and space. As shifts in light and vantage point continually transform what is visible, Lockshin’s paintings ask the viewer to move in relation to them, making perception itself an active part of understanding the work.

Larissa Lockshin (b. 1992, Toronto, Canada; lives and works in Queens, NY) received her BFA in Painting from Parsons School of Design. She recently completed a 2025 Artist Residency with Ace Hotel Brooklyn, culminating in the solo exhibition Strawberries and Other Secrets. Recent solo presentations include Maya Frodeman Gallery, Jackson Hole (2024); Alzueta Gallery, Barcelona (2024); Europa Gallery, New York (2023); and Cob Gallery, London (2023). Her work has been featured in exhibitions at James Cohan Gallery, New York; Arsenal Contemporary, New York; Tyler Park Presents, Los Angeles; and Cob Gallery, Seoul, among others. Lockshin’s work is held in the TD Bank Art Collection and the RBC Art Collection.