Llyn Foulkes

On Saturday I visited the Hammer Museum to see an exhibition of artwork by Llyn Foulkes. It was an eclectic display of surrealist, pop, mixed media, and three dimensional paintings. Foulkes addressed many themes through various methods over the span of his career. Some works displayed nostalgia, some presented gory portraits, and others explored the corrupt nature of commercial pop culture.

This work, Return Home, seems very nostalgic, the head being placed on a chalkboard, which is often associated with childhood. The vintage postcards are another motif present throughout many of Foulkes' pieces.

Foulkes' piece With Love is a self portrait he had been working on for many years before covering the forehead and eyes with bloody red paint. This bold move began a series of paintings with bloody and severed heads.

Some of Foulkes' works extended beyond the painting's boundaries.


















Many of Foulkes' works of art used a great deal of texture, often protruding from the page and becoming three dimensional. The Awakening, a sad portrayal of a marriage's final years, utilizes various materials to create this effect.














Llyn Foulkes also created a series of large desert rock paintings in psychedelic and electric blues, greens, and pinks. In person these paintings were evocative and beautiful. Foulkes, however, was not pleased with the lack of depth in these painting, although they were well received by critics and art galleries.


















Foulkes addressed the of commercial pop culture through a series of paintings that included the iconic Mickey Mouse as the symbol of an industry that brainwashes children, effecting not only their lives but their parents' as well.

 The final two painting presented in the exhibition, The Lost Frontier and POP respectively, were each displayed in their own rooms. Each room was completely dark with black walls and each painting was large enough to cover most of the wall. The paintings, Foulkes' masterpieces, combined many of the themes that were present throughout Foulkes' work. The texture of the masterpieces, and the way Foulkes indented and brought forward different parts of the pieces, created light and movement. In the last piece, POP, music created by Foulkes was playing in the room. It was really amazing to view these paintings in such an environment.

For further information on Llyn Foulkes, visit his site.