Larry Hofmann, a native of Mankato, Minnesota, began painting full time in 1977, employing acrylic paint and airbrush. Initially, he focused on the Western landscape, but in 1983 he began experimenting with Midwestern imagery, oil paint and brush. Until 1994 his images were nearly always derived from photographs that he had taken. He eventually abandoned photography and worked entirely from small pencil sketches until 2006 when he ultimately returned to photographic images as the basis for his paintings. Hofmann has exhibited extensively since 1977, and in 1981 he won the First Annual Competition for Representational Painting from Selkowitz Fine Art in New York. Hofmann has been commissioned to paint major works for numerous regional corporate art collections including The St. Paul Companies, Securian, Honeywell and United Health Care.
"In the summer months I spend a fair amount of time riding back roads on a motorcycle. Sometimes I find myself in a near meditative state in which the land, light and atmosphere blend into a heady mixture that can become highly evocative and seems to elicit responses redolent of childhood and dreams. The landscape passes by, a layered stream of shape and color, the particulars of which are only generally observed. But every once in awhile the stream suddenly freezes, and a potential painting is spread before me. It is unmistakable when it happens and can be exhilarating. If I have a camera I attempt to capture the look, the atmosphere, the nuance of the place. In the studio, the best images are then fussed with and coaxed along into something I think worth painting. For the most part, the places in these paintings actually exist, though the paintings are not meant to be records of fact; rather, they are about mystery, memories, and places that have become paintings." |
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