Artist Linda Touby


Linda Touby


As a painter in the early 21st century, committed to abstraction, how do you paint in an innovative style without echoing the overpowering statements of the abstract expressionists. By creating paintings that reflect these lessons and yet engage present issues.


Each painting emerges from the process of layering one color on another on another, an ongoing contest in which the finished painting is not derived from preliminary sketches, but from the actual process that is dependent upon the manipulation of color passages. The canvas is often divided by a horizontal, surrounded above and below by areas that could be sky and earth, resulting in the format of a landscape study. These horizontal films of color are not unlike Rothko’s color passages.  But Touby’s surfaces are much more active, revealing much more evidence of individual brush strokes.  Color is an accumulation of these markings, blended directly onto the canvas itself.


Changes in scale are managed effortlessly.  Her vision is equally dispersed in macrocosmic or microcosmic proportions.  Brushstrokes are malleable and easily adjust in the process of painting to the scale of the canvas.


Different works reveal a variety of techniques and sources.  Touby works directly on about four paintings at a time, constantly revising each surface through innovative and intuitive actions.  She most often works in oils with a wax medium, a recipe taken from Rembrandt.  There is often evidence in the finished paintings of the steps that were taken to produce it.  Glazes intervene with oil passages.  Adhesive tape is used to remove and add elements.  Oil sticks, or crayons are applied to thin layers of dried paint.  Pure color powder in a wax medium spreads easily as a final layer, bringing clear vivid colors and light to the paintings.

 
Touby’s paintings should be perceived in the historic continuum of abstract painting. Her work reflects the groundbreaking innovations of some of the original abstract expressionists, such as Rothko or deKooning.

Please enjoy her work in the lobby and feel free to touch base with Tim Yarger with any questions.

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