In his current series, Beginner Nudes, Chris Lael Larson transforms discarded student figure paintings into immersive installations, still-life photographs, and paintings that continue the original creative idea of painting — moving an abandoned impulse forward in time and giving it new life, meaning, and value. In this series, he reclaims and interprets the paintings and combines them with large-scale photographic prints, paint, fabric, natural elements, and hand-built wooden shapes that expand the paintings' narrative and context. Next, Chris constructs an in-studio installation from the elements that is finally photographed. The final presentation of the work integrates both the built installations as well as the photos and paintings created in the process to illuminate the evolution of the image through a range of perspectives.
