The artist advances by pursuing both complexity and simplicity. Often a breakthrough somehow discovers the one in the other, along with new ways of perceiving and managing both. Kevin Larkin’s latest works are his strongest: more than ever the picture and the painting are one and the same. There is no excess, nothing to demonstrate technique or to prove good work – only the success of the painting. Such simplicity is a risk: when there is no display of prowess, one risks the charge of not knowing what one is doing. Kevin Larkin is indifferent to charges: his only concern is to make a picture that works well.
Even when one’s tested and proven approaches demand work that is greatly challenging, there is no challenge quite like that of inventing oneself anew, and Kevin Larkin has worked this way so assiduously he is no longer able to settle for anything less: if it’s not that, it’s not painting.
