Silver Camels, 2013
Discarded Camel cigarette packages on linen
 
Probably the strangest thing about the artist Robert Larson is that none of the writeups of his work that I’ve seen bother to say whether he smokes or not. Not knowing anything else about it, I’d surmise that he does, but so much emphasis is placed on the role of “scavenging” in his work that I have to assume he does not smoke. Which is a little weird! So Larson spends hours and hours walking around his hometown of Santa Cruz, California, where he collects discarded cigarette packs and other ephemera in order to create his striking geometrical collages. It seems an intriguing variant of pop art in which the actual mass-produced product is incorporated in the art. After all, Andy Warhol didn’t use actual Brillo boxes, he made them. Larson’s cut out the middle man here.

Larson’s work is interesting because it’s almost too aesthetic and/or beautiful to land any particular point about the dangers of lung cancer, if such is even his aim. And to be honest, that’s the right approach because the links between smoking and disease are, after all, very well known. But to take such depressing subject matter and turn them into a pleasing piece of art, that’s more impressive.
 

Red Flower with Gold, 2010
Discarded cigarette packages, encaustic on linen
 

Unchained, 2013
Discarded Marlboro cigarette packages on paper
 

Green Triangles, 2012
Discarded Newport cigarette packages, encaustic on linen
 

Gold Flower with Red, 2010
Discarded cigarette packages, encaustic on linen
 

Red Honey, 2008
Discarded Marlboro cigarette packages, encaustic on linen
 

Bloom, 2012-2013
Discarded cigarette packaging on canvas
 

Meditations On Top, 1997-2007
Discarded Top rolling paper packaging on linen
 

Passage, 2011
Discarded white-generic matchbooks on linen
 

Blue Honey, 2010
Discarded Marlboro packaging on linen
 

Slow Burn, 2007
Discarded Zig Zag rolling papers on linen
 

Untitled (Marlboro), 1999
Discarded Marlboro packaging on linen
 

Veni Vidi Vici, 2009
Discarded Phililip Morris cigarette packaging on paper
 

Camel Vision, 2013
Discarded Camel cigarette packages on paper
 

Green Flower with Gold, 2010
Discarded cigarette packages, encaustic on linen
 

Interchange, 2008
Discarded Marlboro cigarette packaging on canvas
 
via Beautiful/Decay