Caribbean #17 Painting

Born and raised in New Jersey, where he still lives, Larry Felder's creative output encompasses several dimensions. He is an accomplished Artist, Writer, Illustrator and Paleo Artist, the creative field that bridges Paleontology and Fine Art. As an artist, he is equally at home in oil and acrylic and in Figure and Portraiture, though his true love is Landscape and Seascape. His work can be found in numerous public and private collections, including those of Stevie Nicks, Steve Martin, and also the Estate of Groucho Marx. His landscape and seascape work draws a direct line from the 19th Century Hudson River School and the Luminists, but adds a 21st Century perspective. Larry's illustrations have appeared in numerous books and magazines, such as Scientific American, Earth and New Jersey Monthly. His work in the field of Paleo Illustration has been featured in books, magazines, museums, on-line services and TV shows and movies, such as the Discovery Channel, the Museum of Science in Boston, AOL and the Terrence Malick 2011 film The Tree of Life starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. His 2000 book In the Presence of Dinosaurs was the only TIME/LIFE volume ever awarded a Starred Review in Publisher's Weekly, and remains one of the most popular and well-received titles on the subject of dinosaurs. And his debut novel Afterglow, which creates a dystopian world where thermonuclear bomb detonations have become the world's most popular form of live entertainment, is currently being explored for film development. Larry's current work is an open-ended series of paintings of aerial views of warm, tropical waters. The Caribbean Series explores purposefully beautiful scenes of shallow seas, with coral reefs and hints of sandbars and small islands. The blues and turquoises are complemented with warm pinks and oranges, and focus on early morning light. They represent an approach to seascape that encompasses a Hudson River School and Luminist influence in their use of light and shadow. They also represent a juxtaposition of an almost abstract, non-representational sea with a highly realistic element, usually a small sailboat. The combination of the two creates an interesting tension and impact, one that would be absent were only one of these elements included. Horizon is never shown, by design, and land is either absent or at most an afterthought.