Larkin Matoon's Bio

MEDIUM: Spray Paint

Artist Bios are supposed to be written in the 3rd person but people who talk like that seem crazy to me and the urge to embellish would just be too much - “Larkin Matoon is an artist.  A famous artist.  A famous, good looking artist who never eats way too many doughnuts.”

Plus, most artist’s statements don’t sound biographical but rather braggadocios. I just can’t write about myself that way so I’ll just write how I would speak.

My name is Larkin Richard Matoon and I am 32 years old.  I am married to a beautiful, statuesque Norwegian lady and have a 16-year old stepdaughter who is rapidly getting smarter than me.  Actually, they are both smarter than me.  Mainly, I lift things around the house.

I have worked in the lumber industry (lifting things) for seven years, but art has always been created in the off-hours, be it painting or music.  I have recorded 3 rap cds which, although I’m proud of each one, are all collecting dust in my basement.  It’s a statement about the industry.  Or my lack of ability to promote myself.

I like to do video shorts but that’s more of a hobby.  Mainly, I enjoy projects that challenge my limitations and allow me to work with or showcase other talented individuals. Video and music dip in and out of my wheelhouse from time to time.

I’ve been stenciling since 2007.  It started out small and single color, the majority of my images coming from comic book buyers guides which I repurposed and taped in the window to trace.   This being the case, I could only stencil in the afternoon when the sun was highest.  Thankfully I’ve grown since then, with numerous methods and techniques for achieving different types of painting, but my primary focus is stencils and spray paint.

I don’t have an artist’s statement.  I’m not good at creating some abstract meaning out of whatever image I choose to work with.   If it’s a picture of a building then that’s all there is to it.  Do you like how it looks?  Good.  There’s the statement.   I have renamed some of my painting ten times because they mean something different every time or they in fact mean nothing.  The image has nothing to say other than what you see and if there’s more to it, one of us will surely tell the other.

What I can say about myself is that I love little pieces.  The small that makes up the whole. The minutia of the world that coalesces to make something bigger.  That’s what stenciling is to me. An army of color laced holes that alone are meaningless, but when combined and layered form something complex that is organized and unbelievable to most. It’s a weird reverse engineering of sorts, to take an image then break it down to its smallest parts, then build it back up in my own fashion.  I could more easily paint some things with a brush, but there’s less battle there for me. Therefore, there’s less satisfaction.  And the idea of taking a razor to something for hours on end, destroying it piece by piece, and ending up with something better will always appeal the most to me.

My name is Larkin Richard Matoon.  I specialize in painting portraits and architecture. With photography being the basis for my work, nothing is out of range. Thank you and enjoy.

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