Llyn Foulkes

Llyn Foulkes (born 1934) is an American artist.

As a student at Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts), Foulkes began exhibiting with the Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles in 1959. He held his first his first one-man exhibition at Ferus in 1961. Other solo exhibitions included the Pasadena Art Museum (1962), the Oakland Art Museum (1964). He also had exhibitions with a new gallery across the street from Ferus (exhibiting Jess, Georgia O’Keefe, Irving Petlin, and others) named the Rolf Nelson Gallery (1963, 64). In 1967, Foulkes was awarded the Prize for Painting at the Paris Biennale, Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris followed by a European exhibition there. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art was the first museum to acquire his work for the collection in 1964 as the original building was still under construction. Charles Proof Demetrion selected Foulkes to represent the United States in the IX São Paulo Art Biennial, Museu de Arte Moderna, Brazil also in 1967.

Through the late sixties into the seventies Foulkes created landscape paintings that utilized the iconography of postcards, vintage landscape photography, and Route 66 inspired hazard signs. This period resulted in his first retrospective organized by the Newport Harbor Art Museum (1974). Music also became a major catalyst in Foulkes work at this time, playing drums with City Lights (1965-1971), followed by his own band named The Rubber Band (1973-1977). By 1979, Foulkes returned to a childhood interest in one-man bands, and he still performs with The Machine regularly on the West Coast having just released a new CD-rom of original compositions entitled Llyn Foulkes and His Machine: Live at the Church of Art.

Since the early 1980s, Foulkes has turned to working on a series of tableaux beginning with "O’Pablo" (1983). His work "POP", (1986-1990), in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, utilizes fragments of real clothing, real upholstery all conjoined with the painted surface. Paul Shimmel included "POP", along with a new group of paintings, in his "Helter Skelter" exhibition of 1992. His most recent large scale projects are "The Lost Frontier" (1997-2004) and "Deliverance" (2004-2007).

He is the subject of a documentary by Tamar Halpern and appears in the short film, "Your Name Here".

He was born in Yakima, Washington and now resides in Southern Los Angeles.

References

Llyn Foulkes: Fifty Paintings, Collages and Prints from Southern California Collections: A Survey Exhibition 1959-1974 Newport Beach: Newport Harbor Art Museum 1974

Llyn Foulkes: The Sixties New York: Kent Fine Art 1987

Brooks, Rosetta Soul Searching Artforum Summer 1990 pp. 130-131

Desmarais, Charles Proof: Los Angeles Art and the Photograph 1960—1980 Los Angeles: Fellows of Contemporary Art, Laguna Beach: Laguna Art Museum 1992

Schimmel, Paul Helter Skelter Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art 1992

Knode, Marilu et al. Llyn Foulkes: Between a Rock and a Hard Place Fellows of Contemporary Art/ Laguna Art Museum, CA 1995

Duncan, Michael A Better Mouse Trap Art in America January 1997 p. 82-87

Whiting, Cecile Pop L.A.: Art and the City in the 1960s Berkeley: University of California Press c. 2006 pp.43-47

Llyn Foulkes New York: Kent Gallery c. 2007 pp. 1-72

External links

* [http://www.kentgallery.com Kent Gallery]
* [http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/tranSCRIPTs/foulke97.htm Interview with Llyn Foulkes]
* [http://www.tamarolandpictures.com/lostfrontier.php Tamar Halpern's Documentary about Llyn Foulkes]