Larry's life and work reflect his down-to-earth Midwest upbringing combined with the Western spirit of adventure and freedom found in California where he has lived for the past twenty-five years. Larry instantly took to drawing as a child. His parents recognized his early passion and enrolled him in art classes at the Dayton Art Institute in Dayton, Ohio.
In college, his Fine Arts major enriched his understanding and interest in pursuing landscape, seascape, and still life. As a young adult, he combined his creative art skills with his love of graphic art and worked in advertising and print media. In recent years he discovered pastels and combined his love for pastels with another passion—hiking and plein air—to create works of fine art. He admires the rich pigments and dry blending pastels bring to the “moment of discovery,” as he calls it.
Larry's first pastel painting in 2015 amazed him. Pastels captured the beloved desert scenery where he lives and motivated him to embrace the endless hiking opportunities and infinite painting subjects. His artwork opens a window into the spectacle of both alpine and desert mountain ranges, the expanse of desert vistas, compelling rock formations, and the extraordinary cloud formations against shockingly blue skies.
Larry’s art requires extensive off-trail hiking on “art safaris,” as he calls them. His desire is to capture a moment—a scene that you, the beholder, may never see in person but can still lose yourself in through his art. He especially loves painting the immediacy of locations in the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountain ranges, Joshua Tree National Park, and across the Coachella Valley. “I want to capture that fleeting moment of natural bliss, to share that achingly poignant moment of beauty, wonder, and awe that can only be found in the wilderness.”
Larry Hemmerich is an Artist member of the California Art Club, and an active member of the Palm Desert Artists Council, American Artists Professional League NYC, Pastel Society of Southern CA, Pastel Society of the Southwest, Pastel Society of America, and the Desert Plein Air Association.
His Gallery/Studio is located in the Backstreet Art District of Palm Springs, CA. He has received numerous awards in multiple exhibitions and has been honored to participate in prestigious invitationals such as the San Marino League’s biannual fundraiser at The Huntington and the Borrego Springs Plein Air Invitational.
