Llyn Foulkes, Quintessential LA Artist, Dies at 91

"Guided by an uncompromising vision and a shrewd critical eye, the artist satirized American culture through paintings, assemblage pieces, and music that hummed with tactile vitality. Enigmatic artist and musician Llyn Foulkes passed away on Thursday, November 20, at his home in Los Angeles. The news was confirmed by his daughter, Jenny Foulkes, who noted that earlier reports misstated the date of his death. He was 91 years old."

"Across his seven-decade career, Foulkes created paintings, assemblage pieces, constructions, and music that mine American history, cartoons, politics, and his own autobiography in a diverse oeuvre, mixing dark humor and scathing critique with a tactile vitality. He was a mercurial artist, never wanting to be pinned down with one style, though he was perhaps best known for his Bloody Head paintings, portraits whose subjects looked as if their heads had been split open, flayed, or disfigured with collaged elements."

""Llyn Foulkes was a quintessential Los Angeles artist," Ali Subotnick, who curated a 2013 Foulkes retrospective at the Hammer Museum, told Hyperallergic. "Through his fiercely original paintings and mixed-media tableaux, he satirized icons of popular culture, critiqued the commodification of American life, and illustrated the violence and contradictions embedded in our national identity.""

Llyn Foulkes died on November 20 at age 91 in Los Angeles. Born in Yakima, Washington, on November 17, 1934, he moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1950s to attend the Chouinard Art Institute. Across a seven-decade career he produced paintings, assemblage pieces, constructions, and music that mined American history, cartoons, politics, and autobiography, combining dark humor, scathing critique, and tactile vitality. He resisted being pinned to a single style but became known for Bloody Head paintings portraying disfigured, collaged portraits. Early career milestones included a 1961 solo show at the Ferus Gallery and a 1962 exhibition at the Pasadena Art Museum.

Read at Hyperallergic