Ted Larsen
lives and works in Santa Fe
b. 1964, USA
biography
Ted Larsen develops a body of work at the intersection of painting and sculpture, where formal rigor meets a deliberate subversion of modernist codes. Through his “Shaped Paintings,” hybrid wall-based objects, he questions the very foundations of minimalist practice and the notion of purity in abstract language, which he intentionally destabilizes.
Initially trained as a landscape painter, and deeply influenced by the desert environments of northern New Mexico where he grew up, Larsen underwent a decisive shift in the early 2000s. In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, he abandoned traditional painting to explore new forms using salvaged materials. He notably works with pre-painted fragments of automobile bodies, what he calls “non-art materials”, preserving their wear, tonal variations, and traces of time. Mounted onto wooden structures, these elements give rise to geometric compositions that exist simultaneously as painting and sculpture.
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His practice engages with the status of the artwork and the conditions of its perception. By introducing everyday materials into a formal vocabulary rooted in minimalism, Larsen performs a critical displacement: smooth surfaces and pure forms are brought back to a tangible materiality, loaded with history. This approach, akin to bricolage, allows him to recontextualize objects and shift their meanings, echoing the logic of the ready-made while renewing its implications.
While his works retain the formal elegance and economy associated with geometric abstraction, they also introduce a subtle irony toward its historical ambitions. Larsen embraces a form of anti-triumphalism: his often small-scale works invite an intimate viewing experience, encouraging the viewer to approach closely and engage with their spatial and material nuances. The titles, frequently constructed as contradictions or oxymorons, extend this tension by opening up interpretation without resolving it.
Drawing on the legacy of twentieth-century avant-gardes, from Suprematism and De Stijl to American Minimalism, Ted Larsen reactivates their principles only to test their limits. His work does not seek to assert formal certainty, but rather to explore its boundaries, in a constant interplay between order and accident, purity and alteration, painting and object.
Born in 1964 in South Haven, Michigan, Ted Larsen lives and works in Santa Fe (USA). His work is exhibited internationally and reflects an ongoing investigation into material, context, and perception.
A graduate of Northern Arizona University, Ted Larsen has received several major distinctions, including grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the Surdna Foundation. He has also participated in residencies at the Edward F. Albee Foundation and the Asilah Arts Festival in Morocco, where he represented the United States.
His work has been widely exhibited in museums and institutions across the United States, including the New Mexico Museum of Art (Santa Fe), the Albuquerque Museum, the Amarillo Museum of Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as well as in numerous galleries. His works are now held in important public and private collections, including those of the New Mexico Museum of Art, JPMorgan Chase, PepsiCo, the University of Texas, and the Lannan Foundation.
Ted Larsen has also been the subject of numerous publications in specialized journals such as Art in America, ArtNews, Sculpture Magazine, and Architectural Digest, and has been featured in major media outlets such as The New York Times. His work has been included in several publications dedicated to contemporary art, and he was the subject of an interview broadcast by the public television network PBS.
selected artworks
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