Artist J. Larkin focuses on symbols and attributes inherent in organic subjects in an effort to bring the viewer closer to the relevance of a living thing’s imprint on the inner mind. He pits his better nature against his inner demons to create emotional and analytical parity in his work.

With nature a perpetual inspiration, Larkin has drawn his own pliant appraisals about parallels and contrasts regarding the roles of symbiosis, struggle, cohabitation and extinction that are the wages of life on Earth. In nearly every piece of art he has executed there is the consideration of the relationships and similarities between humans and other animals. He feeds these assessments through subconscious filters, grinds them through the process of critical consideration, and assigns them roles in his pantheon of symbols.

In Larkin's world, the medium of flesh and mind become interchangeable, and the players on his stage coexist in ways that make it impossible to discern where one ends and the other begins. It is a place where dreams and nightmares coexist and intermingle, often exchanging roles to experience the other.

Physical aspects of the work include many forms of traditional and experimental media including painting, drawing, small sculpture inclusion and fiber arts. Larkin most often employs techniques developed by close study of the familiar organic form. There are emblematic reasons behind the use of certain media just as there are often subconsciously driven purposes behind the actual compositions. The works are frequently windows into one’s own need to understand the unknown, and often portals to odd small places, ornately invading our shared world at their borders.

Larkin's art requires a suspension of reliance upon traditional purposes of iconography, and begs a willingness to give in to one's own first impulse of interpretation to identify personally with the subjects in the imagery. It demands from the viewer a desire to get close to uncomfortable anxieties, and a readiness to engage old pain with open arms. In embracing the humor in the abyss, the vision of J. Larkin is fully realized.