My art reflects my ongoing fascination with the landscape where urban culture and nature collide, most often to be found in the fringes of our cities. It is in these often-overlooked areas that I find both beauty & pathos, bizarre juxtapositions that reflect how we, as a society, have altered and continue to alter the environment. Growing up and living in Northern New Jersey most of my life, surrounded by endless miles of industrial parks, highways and shopping malls, have fueled my obsession with this landscape.

All of my paintings are painted on location. Once I find a scene that I want to paint, I set up my easel and return to the same site for weeks or months depending on the size of the painting. A large canvas can take me up to three months to complete. In the winter, I paint smaller works on gessoed watercolor paper, from the relative comfort of my car. I find that painting in this manner allows me to interact with the environment as well as with people whom I meet in the different locations in which I paint. While talking to people on location, I receive a lot of information about the sites that I am painting. I find that this interaction, both with people and the environment, makes the method by which I work as important as the final painting.



Image Info:

1. Bronx Drawbidge, 2010, oil/linen, 40" x 52"

2. Elevated Subway, 2008, oil/linen, 32" x 32"

3. Oak Tower, 2009, oil/linen, 30" x 35"

Valeri Larko currently lives and maintains a studio in New Rochelle, New York. She has had numerous solo and group exhibitions of her paintings throughout the New York metropolitan area. Notable solo exhibits include The Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ, Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, NJ, The New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, Safe-T-Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Bronx River Art Center, Bronx, NY, College of New Rochelle, NY and the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, NJ. Notable group exhibits include The Jersey City Museum, NJ, The Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ, ACA Galleries, New York City, Metaphor Contemporary Art, Brooklyn, The National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, Aljira, a center for contemporary Art, Newark NJ, Aferro Gallery, Newark, NJ and the Bruton Street Gallery, London, England

Other honors include a George Sugarman Foundation Grant for painting, a Strategic Opportunity Grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts, A New Jersey State Council on the Arts Grant and an Artist in Residence Fellowship from the Newark Museum. Ms. Larko’s work is in the collections of the Jersey City Museum, The Montclair Museum, The New Jersey State Museum, Johnson and Johnson, Rutgers University and a number of other significant organizations.