Sally Larsen (born 1954) is an American
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...
and
photographer
A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs.
Duties and types of photograp ...
.
Early life
Larsen was born in 1954 in of mixed
Apache
The Apache ( ) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwestern United States, Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan ho ...
and
Aleut
Aleuts ( ; (west) or (east) ) are the Indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands, which are located between the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Both the Aleuts and the islands are politically divided between the US state of Alaska ...
descent.
Career
Larsen exhibits photographs, videos and paintings in
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
,
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
,
Honolulu
Honolulu ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...
, and
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
. She employs a wide variety of materials and digital tools.
[Sally Larsen, ''Japlish'' (Pomegranate Art Books, San Francisco, 1993; )]
Works
*2008: ''The German Eye in America.'' Using digital tools directed through the
internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
to study German photography in America, Sally Larsen proposes that
genetic memory and
epigenetic
In biology, epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression that happen without changes to the DNA sequence. The Greek prefix ''epi-'' (ἐπι- "over, outside of, around") in ''epigenetics'' implies features that are "on top of" or "in ...
issues sway
aesthetics
Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...
. The physical basis for the study center is a library of books and magazines which contain published photographs of the Americas taken by German-born photographers. This ongoing project utilizes the
internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
and clearly defined determining factors to propose and assemble a comprehensive visual data mine involving more than 500 photographers and spanning 160 years.
*2006: ''
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...
: the Diaspora of
Native Americans''. Sally Larsen poses questions about the
genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...
of
aesthetics
Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...
and the confluence of art and genetics. Her ongoing DNA
email
Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...
campaign proposes to unite all Native Americans via
DNA testing
Genetic testing, also known as DNA testing, is used to identify changes in DNA sequence or chromosome structure. Genetic testing can also include measuring the results of genetic changes, such as RNA analysis as an output of gene expression, or ...
to self define the greater Diaspora of Native Americans.
*2001: ''
Jizo Series.'' In the wake of the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
, Larsen began a large-scale C- print series which melds her photographic oeuvre with expressive hi-color ''gluon'' paintings.
During the 1980s and 1990s
*2000: ''Millenniumm Time Capsule'' and ''Water, a Word Worth a Thousand Pictures'' at the
Oakland Museum
Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...
of California use
multi-media
Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as writing, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. This is in contrast to tradition ...
to explore the complex issue of water.
*2000: ''In the Manner of Animals'' celebrates twenty years of Chinese cultural exploration and martial art study with ''The Little Fighting Man Series''.
*1993: ''Japlish'' presents 10 years of Sally Larsen's Asian photography from the streets of Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto.
*1991: Sally Larsen exhibits orotone prints of photographs taken in an infamous
Tokyo
Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...
cabaret known as ''Shiroi Heya'' or ''The White Room''.
*1990: ''Transformer'' becomes the first digital fine art print included in the permanent collection of the New York City
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
. Working with
David Coons
David B. Coons is a computer graphics professional and CGI pioneer.
Scanning and computer graphics
Active in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Coons works behind the scenes in the film and computer graphics industries. He is al ...
and
Graham Nash
Graham William Nash (born 2 February 1942) is a British and American musician, singer and songwriter. He is known for his light tenor voice and for his contributions as a member of the Hollies and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Crosby, Stills ...
, Sally Larsen creates the ''Transformer'' series of Iris Ink jet prints in 1989. She had begun experimenting with
digital imaging
Digital imaging or digital image acquisition is the creation of a digital representation of the visual characteristics of an object, such as a physical scene or the interior structure of an object. The term is often assumed to imply or include ...
in the mid-1980s.
*1982: Sally Larsen begins an ongoing series of monochrome images presented as
orotone photographs (gold-leafed gelatin silver prints on glass).
[Lyle Rexer, ''Photography's Antiquarian Avant Garde, the new wave in old processes'', Abrams 2002, p. 78/79 ]
Installations with projected video frescos
San Francisco (
Yerba Buena Center ''Surf Trip'' 2000); Oakland (
Oakland Museum
Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...
''Millennium Time Capsule'' 2000); Los Angeles (Bergemot Station ''Surf Trip'' 2001); and Seattle (Sacred Circle ''Big Bang'' 2001).
Publications
*1993: ''Japlish'' (Pomegranate Art Books, San Francisco 1993; ) photographic monograph on Japanese T-shirt culture. Introduction by Neeli Cherkovski.
*2000: ''-ine poems & In the Manner of Animals'' (Solo Zone 2000) features ''The Little Fighting Man / Hsin I'' series of orotone photographs. With Bartolomé Alberti.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Larsen, Sally
1954 births
Living people
21st-century American women
American contemporary painters
American ethnographers
American people of Apache descent
American women anthropologists
American women photographers
American cultural anthropologists
Native American painters
Native American photographers
Native American women artists
Native American women photographers