Meet steen Larsen | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with steen Larsen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi steen, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
Being the son of an air traffic controller surely has had an impact on my artwork today. Remembering sitting in the back of my dads yellow vw beetle, and crossing the airstrip at Copenhagen airport. My dad has this short cut on his way to the control tower. This was in the mid sixties, long before terrorism and strictly security control in all airports around world.

But this little kids had his eyes wide open seeing all the airplanes about to take off to some exotic destination. I think this was first seeds of a life with very much traveling.

Later, nineteen years old, just finished high-school. Me and a good friend hitchhiked to India in what later is called the ” “Hippie route.” I do think this was my firs experience with the road-trip and the freedom attached to be on the road not knowing where the wind will take you.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
“Steen Larsen is a Danish realist painter and photographer using roads and streets as a source for his artwork. Larsen is one of a small group of artists using the mimetic approach in their work – meaning they reflect reality through precision in both detail and expression. Conceptually his work with urban settings centre the tracks mankind leave behind in nature. While driving and traveling in the USA and Europe, Larsen mounts a camera on the windshield on his car and shoots thousands of photos that later serve as sketches for his oil paintings. His photo-based paintings are narratives mimicking a road movie on canvas. Speed is captured at its essences as well as other present-day scenes.”

There are two words who comes into my mind, when I think of my self as an artist “persistent and “stamina”. I once read this biography about Bob Dylan. He describes himself as a craft man. As a plumber or carpenter master their skills as craftsmen, Dylan insist thad his craft is as a songwriter and performer. If its art – other most decide. I think I have the same feeling. I love the days in the studio coming every day, I like the routine and repetition and in these cracks is where the lights get in.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Potrero Hill in San Fransisco. As described before I have very much been inspired by the American photorealist Robert Bechtle ( 1932- 2020)

He lived most of his life at Potrero Hill. Spending days up and down the hills in a constant search for motives for his paintings.

Coming from Denmark flat as a pancake – our highest point is 469 ft. and we even call it ” The heaven mountain” – Potrero Hill , blows by mind and perception The way the horizon disappears cause off the steep hills, so you have a feeling that the world stopping behind the hills. This place is surely so graphic on a sunny morning or afternoon.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Being a young student at Dartington College of Arts, UK in mid eighties, I had this wonderful painting and drawing teacher called Harrison Dix. Here surely open op my eyes for figurative pantings an the artist from “The London school of figurative painters”

The the art college was situated in Devon in the south part af UK. The main buildings could have been the settings of Howard’s from Harry Potter, We had this wonderful old library. And Harrison advised me to look in to this for me unknown American painter called Edward Hopper and the American hyperrealist Robert Bechtle. These to painters has since been a huge inspiration for my paintings i call roadscapes.

Each Sunday we had an art cinema night. The film “Paris Texas” by the German director Wim Wenders just bow my mind. I was the i realized i must see this sites in US and go on on a road-trip.

I just came back from a 3 week long road trip and photo-shooting, starting at Santa Monica Pier where the Route 66 ends. Then driving all the way to Paris in Texas, inspired by the movie. I wanted to have a contemporary look on the legendary and now worn out Route 66.

Website: www.steenlarsen-art.com

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Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/steenlarsenmaleri

Image Credits
Steen Larsen