Artist go the day, August 17, 2023: David Larwill, an Australian painter (#1881)

David Larwill (1956-2011) was a pioneer and leader of that generation of exuberant, larrikin neo-expressionism that emerged in Australian painting in the early 1980s.

Following studies at Prahran College of Advanced Education and Preston Institute of Technology, Larwill travelled to Europe in 1981, where he absorbed the formative influences of Jean Dubuffet and of the European CoBra movement (Karel Appel, Pierre Alechinsky, Asger Jorn et al), artists with a keen interest in ‘outsider art’: the work of children and the mentally ill, and the arts of prehistoric and tribal peoples.  These raw, direct, figurative forms of expression remained at the core of Larwill’s own work for the next 20 years.

Back home, he was a founder member of the legendary Melbourne artists' collective Roar Studios, and his style consolidated in that freewheeling Fitzroy environment of professional autonomy, of beer and dogs and of fast, fat paint.  Subsequent travel exposed him to other ‘Other’ influences: a trip to Central Australia in 1990 introduced him to the pictorial traditions of Aboriginal culture; in New York in 1992-1993 he encountered American exuberance.  Although he arrived too late to meet the fast-living, young-dying Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, there was still plenty to look at, from wildstyle street art to African and African-American art in museums.

Out of these varied sources, by the 1990s and early 2000s Larwill had distilled a mature personal style of what critic Jenny Brown called ‘studied spontaneity.’  His energetic, decorative funk-brut friezes of raw yet stylized figures and ideograms, their bright colors floating within liquid monochrome fields, are both elegantly decorative and entertainingly crude.  Simultaneously vulgar and elegant, savage and optimistic, David Larwill’s art is utterly unmistakable, a unique presence in Australian painting of the 1990s and 2000s.

Prolific and energetic, over a 30-year career the artist held more than 20 solo commercial exhibitions, as well as participating in numerous Roar and other group shows, in curated exhibitions, and in competitions including the Hugh Williamson, Moët & Chandon and Sulman Prizes.  In 2002 the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery staged a highly-successful successful touring retrospective: David Larwill: Stuff that Matters.

David Larwill’s work is held in a number of major public collections including those of the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Parliament House, Canberra and Artbank, as well as in many important corporate and private collections.

David Larwill, the expressionist painter and larrikin who will forever be associated with the Roar Studio he co-founded, died from complications resulting from lung cancer.

With his health failing since undergoing surgery, he was determined to make one last road trip to Central Australia, before meeting up with his wife, Fiona, and sons James and Henry in Alice Springs. Transported in a Winnebago modified for his medical needs, he made it to Coober Pedy, where he died in his sleep. He was 54.

The Art series Hotels, The Larwill Studio: Dedicated to the very lovable Australian artist, the boutique hotel draws inspiration from his studio. With bright, playful Larwill works complementing the contemporary design and incredible views of green parkland and the city of Melbourne, the Larwill Studio is the perfect place for contemplation, creation and inspired thinking!

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David Larwill

The Larwill Art Series Hotels
Melbourne, Au

The Larwill Art Series Hotels
Melbourne, Au

Summer. 1982

Adam and Eve, 1983

On the Street (Diptych), 1984

 Man Walks Down the Stream, 1987

 On Top of the Mist (Four Figures) 1987

Rigoletto, 1988

Skin Diving, 1988

Outstation, 1990

Dream Catcher, 1996

Tanya Goes to Melbourne, 1997

 Bob won't mind, 1999

 Dismissed, 1999

 Study for ‘The Story Teller’, 1999

Waving Boy (Winter), 1999

 The Dead Flea, 2001

 Frenzy, 2002

 Unknownl, 2002

Who's on First, 2003

There's One in Every Mob, 2004

 Blues, 2005

 Popeye, 2005

 Trip, 2005

 Yes, 2005

 Dog, 2006

 On A Roll, 2006

Dog, 2008

Contemplating His Place in Humanity, 2011

 Little King, 2011

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