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Welcome to Larry's Artwork Gallery
 
"I have always loved and been part of the West," says Nielson.  Larry mainly concentrates on painting portraits of Native Americans, Wildlife, and Western themes. 
 
Nielson's earliest works on wood were usually about Native Americans.  The Native American images were a perfect match for the authentic weather-beaten wood canvas.  Of his work Larry says, "I've tried to blend my paintings into the color and texture of the wood, knot holes, nail holes, cracks and all."

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Have you ever looked at nature and felt a spirit touch your own?  Perhaps you have sat by the bank of a small stream, and seem to hear the voice of the water as it softly trickles over the river’s rocky bottom.  In the Disney movie, Pocahontas, the Indian princess says that every animal, rock and tree‚“has a voice, has a spirit, has a name”. 
 
A sideways glance at an old piece of wood usually evokes no deep experience of any kind, even recognition.  But what if the wood was looking back at you?  Ah, that would indeed evoke a reaction.  At first sight – delight!  Followed by wonder and eventually, perhaps, by quiet contemplation or overwhelming joy.  This special artist can find what is hidden inside the wood and bring it to life.
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Larry Nielson uses rough, weathered wood as his canvas.  The painting itself is not garish or overdone but the dark colors and natural tones he uses are subtle – they become seemingly part of the wood itself.  Wood stains and acrylics transform old wood planks into images that reach deep into the wood for vision, and into the spectator for a response.  The faces and images do not appear to have been painted onto the wood at all; rather they grow out of it from a mysterious inner realm.  Each piece is one of a kind.
 
“I have always loved and been part of the West,” says Nielson, and this love of desert land is revealed in his art.  Nielson has lived most of his life in the west, between Southern California and Utah.  Recently he returned to the quiet Utah town where he was born: Ephraim, Utah.  This small rural town is also home to sagebrush, sand and beautiful timbered mountains.  It takes a while to see the beauty of a desert and most people simply drive through, on their way from one place to another, and never see that beauty.
 
But for those who do stop and listen to their hearts, a quiet desert town has a lot of beauty to share.  An old barn, an old piece of wood, has a story to tell.  Nielson has captured these stories.  It may be that an evocative image on a wooden plank is exactly what you need to cause you to stop, pause and reflect on your inner beliefs.  Or you can simply appreciate the statement of embellished nature for your enjoyment.
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Larry’s childhood in Ephraim was the starting place for this remarkable vision.  “I would see faces and shapes in the old wood on the fences and barns at my father’s ranch,” says Nielson.  “The wood seems to have a life of it’s own.  My expression is as a partner with the wood.”
 

Nielson searches each piece of wood, in pursuit of the image that belongs there.  “There has to be a balance between what the wood says to me and what I can offer it,” he says.  It is this deep feeling of give-and-take that creates the haunting images of emotion he so effectively creates on wood.
 
A little raw umber acrylic and a little stain, together with his inner vision is all that is needed to bring nature’s portrait, whatever that may be, to life.

Nielson’s early works on wood were usually intense Native American themes.  But as he searched and painted and searched again, his vision was enlarged to include his love of the Polynesian culture, the old West, and wildlife, or anything else he sees trying to come out of hiding in the grains and stains of his unique canvas.  Like any artist, he seeks to find the limits of his own vision while becoming more and more the master of his own unusual canvas.
We believe this technique of expression has yet to be duplicated in the art world.
 
We (Wind and Wings Woodworks) have the special honor of presenting the latest in a long line of creative and unique projects by Artist Larry Nielson - his mystical, magical, deeply moving Artwork on Wood. 
 
We share a gratitude for Larry's passion.  This legacy of mysterious, subtle Artwork will live on in the wood for many more decades and centuries.  The messages of these 'hidden' ones will carry forward to many generations.  Larry’s art is his gift to this life.  What greater gift could one hope to leave this world than a pause, if only for a moment, into one's soul?