Paul Larson

Paul started his unique style of artwork when he first drew a family portrait at the age of twelve. He had always loved to draw landscapes and trees, animals and other realistic images at an early age, but it wasn’t until middle school that his current style started to show itself. “It all started on papers in school, and whatever else I could draw upon without getting in trouble.” Paul drew like this to pass the time in school. He says that it was a way for him to express himself and “muddle through the pretension” that he saw early on in life, which ability he called a blessing and curse for someone so young.

Paul’s artwork, which he calls “Raw Creativism,” centers around faces and contorted bodies. The faces are a consistent thematic element and most crucial part of his art, because even though they each vary, they are something that has changed very little from when he first started using them on his homework assignments 25 years ago. It was not until 2002 that Paul actually put anything down on canvas. He says of his artwork: “The faces are the soul(s) of the paintings. They tell the tale! By keeping the faces and bodies quite juvenile in appearance, I can still express what it is I’m feeling or wanting to comment upon, be it despair, depression, joy or whatever, and pull it off while accomplishing my goal with this art: To have fun and create something that people enjoy looking at.”