Jacqui Larsen

"I am drawn to the fantastic in the every day."

In her mixed media paintings, Jacqui Larsen pictorially juggles the people, animals and things that fill our days in ways that help plumb our individual mysteries, manifest our dreams and compensate for our limited perspectives.

A layer of found collage forms the foundation of each painting -- vintage blueprints and maps, playing cards left scattered across a Parisian street, fragments of handwritten letters, colorful marbled papers and pages from a long discarded diary. Over this foundation, Larsen builds textures, colors and images in oil paint, while still allowing the collage to peer through.

Jacqui Larsen began painting as a teenager in Syracuse, New York, then headed west to complete an MFA degree in painting from Brigham Young University in Utah. Since then, she has traveled extensively, finding that new places and people help her see life with a fresh perspective.