The Central Libraries > Mid-Manhattan Library > Art > Artist Wall on Third

Judith Linhares

"Gouaches"

30 April – 21 August 2008
The Art Collection, 3rd floor
Hours: Mon-Wed 9-9, Thu-Sat 10-6

The Art collection at Mid-Manhattan Library is pleased to present an exhibition of four paintings on paper by the well-known artist Judith Linhares, the recipient of a 2008 Academy Award in Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her vivid and expressive paintings created in lush and brilliant colors depict simple subjects in a magical way. Linhares' free handling of form and content is further enhanced by her sophisticated rendition of color, light and space. Tom Huhn, the art critic and the Head of the Art History Department at the School of Visual Arts, will join Linhares for an "Artist Dialogue" on Monday May 19th at 6:30 p.m. on the 6th floor. "Art Wall on Third" exhibition series is curated by Arezoo Moseni.

Artist Statement
Pansies, the size of dinner plates, are dancing in place; the chickens are running from the falling sky and the ants are looking for water. Everyone and everything is in motion in these paintings. The desire to synthesize the real with the imagined, the light with the dark, and the conscious with the unconscious are the motivating processes that inform my paintings.

The works in this exhibition are typical of my approach to the medium of gouache. It is an opaque watercolor with a nice velvety surface and highly saturated color. Gouache is one of my preferred materials because it sits on the paper in a bold graphic way, and is a wonderful vehicle for color and light. Through the process of putting down color and then considering its consequences, the painting begins to take form. I ask myself, do these bright areas of paint advance in the space of the paper or do they recede? Do these brush strokes suggest a figure, a flower, a cabin and a summer sky? Color, light, materiality and illusion are my guides.