LARISSA MCLEAN

Larissa McLean is a mixed media artist. She has a BFA in printmaking and holds a current teaching certificate for Alberta and British Columbia. Larissa has been painting for over 20 years and is knowledgeable in mixed-media and fluid acrylics.

Her visions in fluid acrylics and watercolour are of nature: images warm and inviting, to mysterious and distant, each a distillation of recent experiences imbued with the energy of her own feelings at the moment. Some paintings take multiple sessions spanning weeks, while others are created in just a few hours.

“With Covid I have had to re-think the way that create and teach art in the world. I have small classes set up out of my home studio @Passionstems at the Mill. I also have been given the opportunity of time during the pandemic so I have picked up where I left off with art school (20 years ago)working with plant dye painting on silk scarves, making my own pigments, pine needle weaving, rug hooking felting and mixed-media. Who knows when I’ll be given this time again? I am learning as much as I can to offer more of a range of materials and areas to assist others in the future it is a gift. My current body of work emerged from working on pine needle baskets, collecting needles from around the Comox Valley got me outside and was therapeutic and the central design of the circle became very holistic for me. The idea of nesting,being comforted in a time when comforting and hugging doesn’t happen a lot. These mini projects then transformed into printing the bottoms of each basket like a finger print pushed into gelatin or a gelli-plate which I then printed on rice paper and collaged into circular paintings of flowers and movement and stitching shapes and abstracted backgrounds. The weaving led to the textures of rug hooking and now I am creating tapestries and mix-media pieces with fabric in my paintings. Who knows where it will take me?  Hopefully everyone is staying safe and finding healthy creative outlets for themselves.”