Born in Tamaki Makaurau (Auckland) in 1970, Larisse Hall has been based in Nelson since 2001. Of English and Tainui descent, Hall lives an organic lifestyle consistent with the whakatauki: ‘Manaaki whenua. Manaaki tāngata. Haere whakamua.’ or ‘Care for the land. Care for the people. So, we may go forward.’ This ethos is the basis of her life and art practice.
Studying at AUT, Hall received a Distinction in Apparel Technology & Design (1992). A full-time arts practitioner since 2008, part-time tutor at Te Pukenga NZ Institute of Skills & Technology (NMIT) since 2015, she has exhibited both nationally and internationally since 2013. In 2022, Hall won the Arte Laguna (Italy) Special Prize – an artist residency and exhibition at Espronceda Centre for Art and Culture, Barcelona, Spain. She was a finalist in See.Me, Art Takes SOHO (2018), See.Me, Art Takes Miami (2013/14/18), and See.Me, Scope Art, Miami (2015).
Hall’s public commissions include Sculpture in the Gardens, Auckland Botanic Gardens (2020/2021), MOTAT Night Lights (2017) and Light Nelson (2014/16/18).
Acknowledging light as our oldest time tool, Hall first explored the use of light and time within her work in 2015. She refers to these works as ‘light infused paintings’. Highlighting time as a precious commodity, Hall uses an act of spontaneity to represent our actions in the present. Archived in paint, this spontaneous mark is extended into our future, become past, highlighting how today’s actions impact beyond our now.
Hall combines traditional techniques of painting in oil on hand-stretched forms, with the science and colour of infused physical light. Her works exist as paintings by day, transforming into something ethereal as daylight diminishes, and the colour and energy of emanating light from within intensifies.
In Time, is a progression in Hall’s work with her new light-infused paintings being brighter, lighter and looser in style. Complementing the paintings are two free standing sculptural works. A smaller sculpture Moving In Tune With You (2021), and a 1.7M external work, Flirt (long-listed in the Aesthetica Art Prize, England 2015). As in the paintings, the sculptures each comprise two inter-related forms. In the sculptures however, the lights within each pair change colour alternately as if in conversation.
Offering further opportunities for viewer engagement are Hall’s 2021 deconstructed ‘paintings’, titled Those Who Tread After Us. In these works, she uses translucent, coloured acrylic in 3-dimensional forms to replace and reinterpret the translucent layers of paint that exist on a traditionally glazed oil painting. Placement, the play of light, and the viewer’s attire and actions, cause reflections to bounce off and silhouette against the works resulting in ‘portraits’ that never exist the same way twice. Free standing coloured acrylic forms (Dancers) accompany the hanging works.