THE ARTISTS' LEGACY FOUNDATION AWARDS
$25,000 TO LLYN FOULKES
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA (September 25, 2009) The Artists' Legacy Foundation announced today that its third annual Artist Award of $25,000 will be given to painter Llyn Foulkes. The Foundation created the Artist Award to recognize and honor accomplishments of an outstanding visual artist whose primary medium is painting or sculpture.
"Pop", 1985-1990, mixed media including clothing and upholstery on wood, 84" x 123" x 3". Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
Mr. Foulkes' nominator wrote "Foulkes has been a major figure in the Los Angeles art scene since 1961 when he had a solo exhibition at the Ferus Gallery. Foulkes began as an abstract expressionist painter but by 1962 in his solo show at the Pasadena Art Museum, he showed emotionally charged, expressionist works that incorporated assemblage and found objects. His influence can be seen in several later generations of artists. Over his lengthy career, Llyn Foulkes has demonstrated exceptional talent, influence, perseverance and absolute dedication... [His life as an artist has been marked by] his inability to compromise, his slightly acerbic and irreverent wit, and the challenging aspect of his work to a general audience."
Mr. Foulkes has been a practicing artist for over 40 years. Currently his work can be seen in New York at Kent Gallery and in Santa Monica at Craig Krull Gallery. Born in Yakima, Washington in 1934, he now resides in Los Angeles. He attended the Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts) and upon graduating won the First Award for Painting and the First Award for Drawing. Throughout the late sixties and early seventies, Foulkes became well known for his paintings of rocks and the desert landscape of Southern California. In the seventies Foulkes stopped making the rock paintings fearing that he had "lost his soul and was selling out." In 1973 he began a new series of paintings, which he referred to as "the bloody head paintings."
Since the early eighties, Foulkes has been working on a series of tableaux including several recent large scale projects, The Lost Frontier (1997-2005), a tour de force image of the Los Angeles landscape as a heavenly wasteland; Deliverance (2004-2007), depicting the artist right after he has murdered Mickey Mouse (for Foulkes, long a symbol of corporate brainwashing); and The Awakening (1994-2009), a highly emotional and personal painting of the artist and his ex-wife that he began in the early nineties during the breakup of his marriage. He works on the tableau paintings for years, adding and subtracting elements, and painting with textured paste and paint in his pursuit of the ultimate illusion of depth.
"The Lost Frontier", 1997-2005, mixed media with soundtrack, 87" x 96" x 8".
Music has been a very important part of Llyn Foulke's life. "Painting is my torment and music is my joy," he says in a video. He performed in high school and later played drums with CityLights (1965-1971), followed by his own band named The Rubber Band (1973-1977). By 1979, Foulkes returned to a childhood interest in one-man bands, and constructed a machine from which he plays strings, keyboard, drums, horns, bells and sings. He performs regularly on the West Coast and in 2004 released a CD of original compositions entitled Llyn Foulkes and His Machine: Live at the Church of Art.
Mr. Foulkes was surprised by the award and when reached by phone said, "Receiving the Artists' Legacy Foundation's Artist Award is a total surprise. I am thrilled and delighted to accept it and it will help me a great deal." A ceremony honoring the artist will take place in Oakland, CA this October.
Artist's Website: www.llynfoulkes.com
ABOUT ARTISTS' LEGACY FOUNDATION ARTIST AWARD
Each year, ten artists, either painters or sculptors, are nominated anonymously by five nominators for the Artist Award. This year the Foundation's panel of jurors, which reviewed the nominations, included Judy Pfaff, painter; Michael Duncan,art critic, curator, and art historian; and Christopher Brown, painter. The nominators and the jurors are art world peers chosen. The 2009 jurors agreed: "It was very challenging to select the award recipient because all nominees were quite different from each other and extremely worthy."
The Artists' Legacy Foundation was established by artists Squeak Carnwath and Viola Frey and incorporated in Oakland, California in 2000. After the death of Viola Frey in 2004, her estate became the first to be transferred to the Artists' Legacy Foundation. Over time, the Foundation anticipates adding additional artists' estates.
The mission of the Artists' Legacy Foundation is to promote the art and legacy of Foundation artists after their deaths and to support and advance painters and sculptors of the highest quality through award and grant programs. The Artist Award program is designed to encourage recipients to spend more creative time in their studios and allow ongoing professional enrichment. There are no restrictions on the use of funds by the recipient.
The Foundation serves as a resource to scholars, curators and the general public to deepen their understanding of the work of Foundation artists. Currently, Bigger Better More, The Art of Viola Frey, an exhibition supported by the Foundation and organized by the Racine Art Museum, is in Toronto at the Gardiner Museum and will open in late January at the Museum of Art and Design in New York. Educational programs sponsored by the Foundation help inform artists about estate planning and encourage record keeping and documentation by artists of all ages. A collaborative project with the Joan Mitchell Foundation entitled "Creating a Lasting Legacy" extends the work of the Artists' Legacy Foundation, enabling four older artists to document their artwork, creating databases for a future catalogues raisonne.
Contact: Diane Frankel, Executive Director
Artists' Legacy Foundation
Tel: (510) 834-2787