CONTACT INFORMATION
Larry Groff (aka John Lawrence Groff)
San Diego,CA
email: larry@larrygroff.com
phone: 619-609-8482
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Larry Groff is a San Diego based painter, previously from Boston, MA where he lived for much of his life. Mr. Groff attended the Massachusetts College of Art where he received a B.F.A. in Painting in 1988. He attended the Yale University Summer School of Art and Music in 1986, Boston University where he received an M.F.A.in painting in 1993.
He is a member of the Prince Street Gallery in NYC and is currently represented in San Diego by the Santa Ysabel Art Gallery.
He has had four solo exhibitions at the Prince Street Gallery and has participated in a two-person exhibition at the former Noel-Baza Gallery in San Diego, group exhibitions at the Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, California; Bowery Gallery in NYC, NY; Blue Mountain Gallery in NYC, NY; Prince Street Gallery in NYC, NY; Morris Gallery of Contemporary Art at the Missouri Valley College, Marshall, MO; The Copley Society of Art, Boston, MA; San Diego Art Institute 52nd and 51th International Juried Exhibitions, San Diego, CA; Bennington Center for the Arts, Bennington, VT; Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA; Sherry French Gallery in NYC, NY; and the Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA.
For a detailed CV pdf click here
Reviews
October 3, 2023 review by Luke Lyman in the New Criterion The Critic’s Notebook :
“Form and substance are one and the same,” said the Danish artist Asger Jorn. Such harmony is more easily dreamt about than created. But in Larry Groff’s new suite of paintings, featured in “Larry Groff: Flipped” at Prince Street Gallery, playful perspectival experimentation is merged with equally playful subject matter. These are humorous, almost mischievous works, but they are also emotionally layered so as to invite intimate study. Similarly, their form makes them immediately accessible—the pastel-colored oils on linen are mouthwatering—while concealing just how complex the underlying construction and layering really is. This show is thus very fun and very serious. —LL
https://newcriterion.com/blogs/dispatch/the-critics-notebook-13676
October 15, 2023 review by Brett Baker in the Painter’s Table,
A lot is happening in Larry’s Groff’s recent paintings. The continuous tense is appropriate to describe them as we see in the paintings the same things that we are seeing in the “real” world. Conflict in its various forms pervades Will Be Wild (2022). Trump presides, glaring as waves of people (are they protesting, rioting, storming?) writhe in a collective chaotic melee. Their violence circles a mass of bodies piled in a Bruegel-esque tower. All transpires under bombardment from UFOs above. In the very bottom right corner, partially hidden by the artist’s signature, a head lies lifeless on the ground, an apparent self-portrait. The world of this painting is a world that has forgotten art; it has killed the artist. In Gracias a la vida (2023) death moves at will throughout a celebration, conducting a band and cradling a baby. All this is rendered in bright color that recalls popular media.
Lest this all sound too dire or overly morbid, Groff presents another contemporary reality in progress in a series of paintings whose subject is the family at home. Whether quarantining or sheltering from the madness of contemporary life, the family members seem determined to spend their time well. They draw, paint, read books, and play chess. And yet we soon realize they aren’t interacting with each other. Even the chess players stare at their pieces on the board (they are opponents after all). These homebound humans, immersed in cultural aspirations, are still disconnected. Each figure exists in their own world and each world is a small (and beautiful) painting within a painting. This compartmentalization recalls predella paintings; Piero’s Flagellation feels like a formal touchstone.
And yet there is another reality in these domestic scenes. The natural world moves in and around the figures as a Klee-inspired abstract music of pattern and form. As sunlight, it pours through windows and across floors and tabletops. It suffuses the entire environment: carpets, tablecloths, the paintings on the walls. In Nap Dream, 2023 an extensive library of books spills from the shelves onto the floor. A cascade of colored rectangles, these books offer something beyond language. They are essential forms, symbols of a world of perceptual experience all but lost to contemporary culture. But, as the painting shows, this experience is right there if only we take the time to look. In these sections of “pure painting” lies an optimism, an affirming belief in the power of art, and in the power of the natural world to renew our experience even in these dangerous times. –Brett Baker
https://www.painters-table.com/blog/larry-groff-prince-street-gallery
PAINTING PERCEPTIONS BLOG
Larry Groff is also the owner and editor of the popular Painting Perceptions blog, which interviews many prominent contemporary representational painters around the world as well as many emerging artists nationally. This blog also features videos, reviews, interviews, opinion essays and more by Groff and several staff writers and contributors.