Larry Madrigal: Quickies

Quickies, Larry Madrigal’s fifth solo exhibition with Nicodim, emerged from a spontaneous approach to painting, in which he embraced the urgency and unpredictability of the creative process.

“Each piece was impulsively started, with no second- guessing. The rule was to follow through with whatever was initiated, like a quickie. No time to shower, chew gum, or think about how it’s going—it’s just going.”

Initially envisioned as a series of playful, erotic “quickie” paintings, the project took on a more complex narrative as life’s inevitable chaos intervened. Themes of sex and struggle, tension and release, permeate the exhibition, reflecting the artist’s journey through what he describes as an impossible vacation—the pressure to escape, the futility of it, and the moments of relief that come in between.

“Quickies became more than just fun sex paintings. It’s about how life interrupts everything, including pleasure, and how we carry on despite it. The quickie moments are scattered throughout a stressful time— brief respites from reality. I look to Jan Steen a lot. He hung in there with Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Frans Hals. He was the people’s painter. His name became synonymous with chaotic household scenes—kind of like a Seinfeld moment. I hope my work captures that same sense of a ‘Madrigal moment’—chaos, mixed with earnest reflection, and a bit of absurdity.”

In Quickies, Madrigal’s signature tragic little humors are ever-present with a blend of vulnerability and wit shining through. He unapologetically gives us candid scenes of the human experience, where imperfections and raw emotions are embraced. Each canvas is a snapshot of the spaces where life doesn’t go as planned, where beauty and frustration, sex and struggle all coexist in fleeting moments of brutal honesty.