Sobre el Artista

Claus Larsen was born in Copenhagen in 1954. He started painting early and showing in galleries in Copenhagen. At the same time, he was drawn to medicine, and graduated in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Copenhagen. He then moved to Milan to work as a medical and scientific illustrator, thus reconciling his interest in art and medicine. Teaching scientific illustration became a further interest. Since the early 90's he has been invited to lecture at universities in Milan, Bologna, Lucerne and Zurich. In 2007, Zanichelli published his book "Artistic Anatomy", using digital technology like 3-D graphics to allow the reader to investigate anatomy through higly realistic volumetric models. From 2007 to 2013 he has been president of AEIMS, the European Association of Medical and Scientific Illustrators. In 2009 Claus Larsen decided to start showing his art work, and he has had exhibitions with galleries in Italy and abroad. It's not The Lady with an Ermine, but The Ermine with a Lady. In Larsen's work, famous paintings undergo a surprising metamorphosis, where commonplace becomes a no-man's-place. Magritte and Dalì are distant relatives of the progeny of Larsen's mind, in which what meets the eye is less than ever to be believed. He creates a realm of imagination, a visionary zoo, where ducks, penguins and toucans teach from a flying pulpit that everything is fluid, everything changing. And in nature, change is the only law that doesn't change. Larsen paints with clarity, to show us that things are ambiguous; the worlds he paints are presented with super-precision, to remind us that all we rely on is unreliable.This is a surrealism of delicate, humorous forms, as must be when the lesson comes, not from a Freud or a Lautréamont, but from the squirrel's little snout. But, of course, we need not see these works as surrealistic. There is no need to get caught up in the snares and blind alleys of Larsens images. We can bypass the nonsensical hidden meanings and just (just?) experience his meadows and his skies, where the clock doesn't keep time, as winter follows spring and dawn breaks at midnight. We are at home in these bright, contradictory worlds, for none of us, none, needs factuality, but rather truth. Not reason, but contradiction governs our lives. The only way to undestand anything, is to realize we understand nothing. Elena Pontiggia 1976-1980 Studied painting in Denmark and worked as a painter for a few galleries in Copenhagen 1987 Degree in Medicine in Copenhagen 1987-1989 Professor of Scientific Illustration, School of Comics, Milan Since 1987 Has lived in Milan and worked as a medical and scientific illustrator 1987-1994 Professor of Scientific Illustration at the European Institute of Design, Milan 1992-1996 Publication of a series of articles on various techniques of painting and graphic design for the magazine Grafica e Disegno, Ikon Editrice, Milan 1993-1994 Professor at the Academy of Communication, Milan 1997-1998 Professor at Centro Telematico Multimediale, Milan 2001-2004 Professor of Medical Informatics, University of Bologna, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery 2003-2007 Professor of Digital Illustration and Digital Animation at Arte & Messaggio / Castello Sforzesco, Milan 2006-2007 Lecturer in Scientific Visualization, Hochschule F?r Design and Art, School of Art and Design Z?rich, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Z?rich, Switzerland 2007-2009 Lecturer in Scientific Visualization, University of Lucerne 2007 Author of the book: Artistic Anatomy, Zanichelli Editore, Bologna 2007 - 2013 President of AEIMS Association Européenes des Illustrateurs Médicaux et Scientifiques 2008 Curator of the Exhibition BioMedicalArt 2008, Museum of Palazzo Poggi, Bologna 2009 Organizer of the AEIMS Congress 2009 at the Natural History Museum of Milan