Llyn Foulkes
Five Postcards, 2006
Mixed Media on panel
Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art Collection
Gift of the Las Vegas Art Museum, 2021; Gift of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2008.
2021.08.153
Most of Llyn Foulkes’ paintings of rocks were made in the late 1960s. He depicted rocks scratched, scarred, isolated in wooden frames, cropped, blurred, and set apart from their surroundings on postcards. The artist described them later as “a Southern California thing ... Los Angeles used to be known for its rocks.” In the early 1970s he made a conscious decision to change his focus, but rocks, though less prominent in his work, continued to play a role in his satirical commentary on commercialism, selfhood, and the American landscape. When he talks about his work he emphasizes the contrast between flatness and depth, and the importance of progressive effort. “It all comes out through the process. Everything that I do comes out through the process. It’s like you draw and you erase, and you draw and you erase, and it vanishes and it comes in, and that’s the way my paintings operate.” Foulkes spoke about his work at the Barrick in 2013. (DKS)
To watch our Virtual Tour of this piece, please click on the following link: Barrick Museum of Art Virtual Tour - Llyn Foulkes.
Item description: A mixed media image consisting of five postcards of rock formations on a rectangular panel. Three of the postcards are positioned in an upside-down L-shape in the upper right corner. The largest postcard is placed in the middle with the smallest postcard superimposed over part of it. Most of the panel is painted khaki brown, but strips of bare woodgrain run along the left side and the lower edge.
