25 Apr 2017

Larry Zox

Berry Campbell

Reviewed by Kim Uchiyama

The vibrant geometric paintings of Larry Zox from the 1960s employ strategies that continue to influence contemporary abstraction. A jazzy, muscular narrative fuels these works. Zox used diagonals to break up languid horizontal elements grounded in landscape. Unseemly juxtapositions of color find idiosyncratic harmony and intense pictorial light emanates from a massive central red shape in Untitled (1963). Diamonds, triangles, and rhomboids comprise the artist's vocabulary, fusing natural and industrial references. For Jean (1963) riffs on the artist's early interest in collage, where irregular shapes and edges stumble and collide with rigid geometry.

Zox's Iowan roots are reflected in paintings like Teepees Pillars (1965) where the restructuring of form derives from a deep sense of the expansiveness of the Midwest. Simple shifts of color create complex pictorial spaces. The organizational strength of these paintings makes even the smallest works feel enormous.