Ex-international snowboarder shines in black and white at Harrogate's RedHouse Originals Gallery

Speaking to the Harrogate Advertiser during a spare moment at RedHouse Originals Gallery, Larsen’s subject matter of wild forests, open water and illuminated vistas should come as no surprise – the 41-year-old Norwegian does, afterall, live with his family on the edge of a forest outside Oslo.

But the graceful style of his exquisitely intricate works on canvas and paper may come as a shock to anyone who remembers Larsen’s days as an international snowboarding cover star known for his fearlessly idiosyncratic approach to the sport.

Meticulously rendered with incredible penmanship, his black and white landscapes resonate with the dark mystery of nature rather than the exhilaration of riding a board amid wide skies and breath-taking vistas.

To Larsen himself, the leap is not so great.

"I learned as a snowboarder if you struggle against nature, you will go nowhere,” he said.

"You have to go along for the ride.

"It all comes back to how you interact with nature.”

From the Shadows follows at RedHouse Originals Gallery on Cheltenham Mount, follows Larsen’s sell-out Darkness exhibition at the prestigious Kittelsen Museum in Vikersund in Norway in 2021.

The neo-pointillist style he revels in is anything but academic.

The end result of all that attention to detail leads to something bigger, something spiritual.

“I mean every single dot,” said Danny.

"I work in black and white because I don’t want to create a photograph.

“My work is like a self-portrait.

"I want the beauty of nature to shine through.”

This search for the light is a very personal one for someone who switched from athlete to artist in 2014.

A talented man, Larsen has, nevertheless, struggled with depression.

“I realised the solution lay in changing the way I looked at the world.

"Nature gives me the sense of joy and beauty I got from snowboarding.”

From The Shadows runs at RedHouse Originals until January 7, 2023.