Native New Yorker

“I was born in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn in August 1969 and raised in Le Frak City, Queens since 1976,” said Lawrence Willoughby, aka Larry the Artist. Larry’s origins are a source of deep pride and the inspiration behind his first ever solo exhibition, Native New Yorker, debuting at Summertime Gallery as the culmination of his three month residency. 

“Since I was four years old, I knew how to draw in my mind,” Larry continued. “I decorated my room in my brownstone apartment. My parents loved my drawings.” A lot has changed since the ‘70s, though Larry’s drawings still hang on his walls. He is a Queens man now and an exhibiting artist. He’s worked at New York progressive studios including H.A.I. (Healing Arts Initiative) and his current and beloved home, YAI Arts in Manhattan. The city, too, is all grown up and then some, with robots serving dim sum and summer temps inching towards the triple digits, eek! The dreamy and sometimes queasy space between past nostalgia and future dread (and excitement!) is where Larry’s work resides. 

“I am suffering mental illness better knowing had schizophrenia,” Larry said. “With hallucinations means hearing voices.” Since his teenage years, Larry has been on a journey to find calm and wellbeing amidst the chaos of his surroundings, and sometimes his own mind. “Peace and masterpiece” is one of his go-to mantras. Larry’s drawings render his city as it exists somewhere between physical reality and the imagination, alluding to personal hallucinations as well as memories, anxieties, and creative visions. 

Larry’s New York is populated with characters and happenings operating just a hair outside the realm of possibility. Clowns and seagulls boogie in an NYC Circus Dance Club amidst bowls of dollar bills. In a candy colored cross-section of the subway’s underbelly, cheerleaders protest alongside a camel and a green-faced witch, broomstick in tow. A robo-nurse delivers meds to a hospital patient with ADHD, as an acid green alien with three eyes and pointy ears peers through the window. 

The drawings combine Larry’s personal memories with our city’s collective fantasies, folklore, and anxieties – robot takeovers, King Kong attacks, alien invasions, and natural disasters are juxtaposed with moments of supernatural camaraderie and collective joy. His Times Square palette and graphic style – where clip art meets surreal psychedelia – appeals to the inner child and doomsday prepper alike. Through the act of drawing, Larry faces his fears head on, and de-fangs them using clowns and balloons. 

During his three month residency at Summertime, Larry channeled his New York pride into his most detailed, psychotropic drawings yet – Where’s Waldo pages for the Mamdani era. He also created a new series of his beloved greeting cards, marking unorthodox occasions like April Fool’s Day and getting health insurance. He collaborated on a series of printed cards with fellow NY artist and fan Chris Retsina, whose topsy turvy city scenarios feel like close cousins to Larry’s. Native New Yorker also features some of Larry’s older work, made over the last five years at YAI Arts. Finally, Larry worked with filmmakers Brina Thurston and Jean-Guillaume Buckel to transform his drawings into animations capturing NYC’s hustle and bustle. 

“I love New York,” Larry said. “The museums, the park, the Q50 bus, the Queens library.” At a moment when our city is bursting with a new surge of hope, Larry’s drawings are playful and potent reminders of what makes this the best gosh darn city in the world – a place of absurdity, chaos, glory, grit, and so much love.