Lar Landa’s paintings and sculptures are unabashedly based on the figure.  The vivid images he creates are drawn from his extensive travels, childhood memories, Italian heritage, as well as reading and classical studies.  His works reflects a lusty preoccupation with theatre, psychology, personal and folk symbolism.  Incorporating the masks, postures, costumes and color of the Italian carnevale, the immediate feeling is celebratory.  Beneath this vivid presentation however, a deeper and darker emphasis is often suggested.

There are enticing symbols and dichotomies to explore in this wok.  The Wolf, which is generally associated with menace and primal fear, often seems to serve as a protective spirit in Landa’s paintings.  The shadowed and sober-looking “Signorinas” contrast with frankly assertive, earthy, sensual females in other paintings.  Ambiguity is implied with expressive figures that incorporate the features of both genders.  Now you see it, and now you don’t.  Freud and Jung would certainly enjoy a heated debate on his work.

"My interest has always been in people. To me the human figure is the most direct way of expressing human emotions and the human condition — the most direct way of communicating. I have always drawn and painted from the model. At times, I use my drawings as starting points for my paintings. Using predominantly acrylic, I work directly, continually changing, developing and refining the ideas on the canvas.

Boldness with sensitivity is the quality I admire in art, and this is the manner in which I work. This comes through in the drawing, the color, the value and the pattern.

Each viewer interprets my work from the sum of his or her own life. In fact, among a whole group of observers, each will interpret a work in his or her own unique way. The important thing is that a work evokes interpretation — causes communication. As an artist I communicate through paint."

BIOGRAPHY

Lar Landa, whose family has deep roots in Northern California, lives in Healdsburg, CA.  He attended Columbia University, Universitas di Firenze and Stanford University, where he received a B.A. in art in 1955.  He has served with the Board of Directors for the California Museum of Art, Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, and the Sonoma Arts Council.

His paintings and sculpture have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco and elsewhere.  His work is in private collections worldwide.   Mr. Landa continues to find new inspiration from his frequent travels to Mexico, Italy and elsewhere in Europe.  In 2006, the Museo ItaloAmericano in San Francisco featured a major retrospective of his art: “Carnivale/ 50 Years.”

RECENT EXHIBITIONS

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