Saskatchewan Artist

Doris Larson

Doris Larson was born in 1939 in the Mennonite community of Aberdeen, Saskatchewan. She received her diploma from the Saskatchewan Teachers' College in 1957 before going to the United States to study at the University of Wisconsin (1959) and the Art Students' League in New York (1963). She continued her education at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (Halifax, 1969) and later studied printmaking and photography at the University of Saskatchewan, in Saskatoon (1976-1978).

Larson's work includes printmaking, wood sculpture, and multi-media installations that incorporate a variety of objects and materials, including cloth, plastic, and metal. A wood allergy that Larson later developed caused her to move into other work, including video production.

As a rural woman artist in Saskatchewan, Larson found that the isolation she had once experienced was, through technology and through the efforts of female artists to claim a place in Saskatchewan's artistic community, disappearing. Larson wrote of the first organized meetings of Saskatchewan women artists in 1980, “It was exhilarating to be part of the group, discovering new people and ideas, hearing about old frustrations and doubts, but sharing and searching and reaching out regardless of how tentatively. Something was beginning. We were all aware of it.” Larson herself has been noted as a pioneer, as she was among the first multi-media installation artists in the province.

Larson's work has been exhibited in group and solo exhibitions since the mid 1970s. In 2009, her work was included in the group show “when i think of the land” organized by the MacKenzie Art Gallery (Regina), along with works by Richard Gorenko, Marsha DeLouchery, Lorne Beug, and others. The exhibition was also shown at the Barr Colony Heritage Cultural Centre in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan (2011).

Doris Larson lives and works in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.