Richard Larter (b.1929-2014) was born in Essex, England – immigrating to Australia, and settling in Yass on Ngunnawal and Country in south-eastern New South Wales in 1962 to take up a teaching position. Larter’s creative practice was diverse, including painting, printmaking, photography, performance, and film. His work was inspired by popular culture, music, politics and society, the natural environment and his personal relationships. He was a remarkable colourist and a technical innovator who was also influenced by developments in mathematics and physics¹, and by the landscape near his home in Yass.

Larter’s Slips & Slides with Cycloidal Shifts, exists as a colourful and immersive response to his local landscape in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales –presented as a purely abstract painting in-spired by his personal experiences of place². The mosaic-like rainbows of interchanging colour have been made possible through Larter’s use of small sponge rollers that layer each band with varying gradations of tone. The resulting landscape of overlapping swatches and arcs of colour sparks the imagination as much as the eye, drawing focus to the seen and unseen light and energies that rhythmically pulsate through and within the landscape³ – instilling both the feeling and experience of place.

1. Jeremy Eccles, “Richard Larter: Pop Artist Merged Arts High and Low,” Sydney Morning Hearld, published August 8, 2014, https://www.smh.com.au/national/richard-larter-pop-artist-merged-arts-high-and-low-20140808-101xc9.html.
2. National Gallery of Australia, “Richard Larter: A Retrospective,” accessed December 15, 2020, https://nga.gov.au/exhibition/larter/default.cfm?MnuID=8.
3. National Gallery of Australia, “Richard Larter: A Retrospective,” accessed December 15, 2020, https://nga.gov.au/exhibition/larter/default.cfm?MnuID=8.