- Jerry Linton
- 1009 S. Highland Ave.
- Bloomington, IN. 47401
- Email: jerrylinton(at)comcast.net
- (812) 331-8419
Selected Exhibitions
Jerry Linton
- -2007-08 Rose-Hulman Institute, Terre Haute, In
- -2002 Aleph Park Ventures, Terre Haute, In
- -2001-02 Rose-Hulman Institute, Terre Haute, In
- -2000 Purdue University, W. Lafayette, In.
-2000 Lafayette Museum of Art, Lafayette, In.
-1998 Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis, In.- -1996 John Waldron Art Center, Bloomington, In
-1993 John Waldron Art Center, Bloomington, In.
-1992 International Center, Stanford University
-1991 Midtown Payson Galleries, New York
-1987-90 A.C. Gallery, San Diego, Ca.
-1983-84-85 Union Gallery, Manhattan, Ks.
-1984 Diebler Gallery, Manhattan, Ks.
-1984 Amarillo Competition, Amarillo, TX.
-1983 6th. National Painting Competition, Detroit- -1983-84-85 Kansas 3,4,5, Competitions, Topeka
-1981 Monumental Art Show, Brooklyn, NY.
-1979 Haber-Theodore Gallery, New York, NY.
-1979 The Municipal Building Show, New York
-1978 Bologna International Art Exhibition, Bologna, Italy
-1978 P.S. 1, Long Island City, NY.- Education
- 1985 Kansas State University: MFA
1984 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
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Duckm(0012)
Acrylic on Canvas 46"x68" 2000
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Guitar (100501) 100"x100"
Untitled 100" x 100"
Wheel
Acrylic on Canvas 46"x68" 1998
About the Paintings
-
Cannibal of my own best intentions
–
This year (2009) I've been having fun with
mismatched mirror images that may, for example, mirror shape or line but not
color between the two paintings. As usual I've cut them up and repositioned
the parts so as not to make cliché computer design but to fashion a bit of a
puzzle along the way. In other paintings, series of 3 or 4 each, also using
some mirroring of images, I wanted to make the transitions from one painting
to the next much more like an evolution of parts, shapes, and spaces so that
the dissimilarities between the first and last painting in a series are very
pronounced, but also, much like evolution, the real underlying “DNA” would
reveal a high percent of commonality to those interested enough to spend
some time reconstructing the sequences. This doesn’t always work as
conceived but fortunately the mutations are none the less interesting, and
more often than not, more diverse than I expected. I’m aware this “biology”
sounding description seems all to common, and it’s most likely some part of
my psyche to want to make this “art making info” sound “natural and organic”
when really it’s the artificial, synthetic, invented and non-natural that
I’m really aiming for. I need not worry, the paintings look it.
This “look” has a lot to do with my technique, simply put: put some paint on
a large piece of glass, slap a piece of canvas on it, and peel it off when
it dries. It gets more complex as invention looks for mother. That’s not
just trying to be clever because there are creative and addictive features
of painting this way that necessitates adjusting to the new reality; the
“blind painting” aspect, memory is tasked differently, and I especially like
the counter intuitive part while farming out conceptual directions to
myself. Of course having an artistic technique that looks a little different
shouldn’t be all bad either?
How I make decisions about what exactly to do next (while painting) is the
art and much of the fun of it all, as anyone knows. I suppose I’m least
satisfied calling it a compulsion, but that’s probably close. To make a
painting I try to use chance, intuition, trial and error within some kind of
varying selection process (that means I’m as arbitrary and capricious as I
choose to be) and I let each painting develop in its own fashion (that means
there is little if any preconception and quite a bit of unorganized activity
all along the way.) I generally try to make paintings with no obvious
meaning or recognizable images and I occasionally try to edit out any image
that might reference these things, but I’ve quite given up hope that it is
possible. This so-called evolution of a painting is internally motivated,
self reflective, and driven by a process that seeks completion. Then, like
all compulsions, it wants to start a new set, and who can refuse after a
while? I generally think that I produce paintings in what seems like a cycle
and that cycle is roughly seasonal, and I tend to not paint at all in the
winter. I suspect that this too is also some kind of illusion since I also
paint whenever I get the motivation regardless of the time, yet the cycle
metaphor seems useful is a way that I haven’t quite figured out yet, and so
I’m sticking with it until it completely breaks down. Since I don't referee
the process from some ultimate endpoint (that is I have no known goal) and
the imagery unfolds in an obscured and sometimes hidden way, I often only
get to anticipate what the painting will look like until it is finished.
That’s a round about way of saying that since I paint on a piece of glass; I
can’t see the painting until it is done. While literally not always true, in
a practical sense it is close to the heart of the wonderful dilemma of
wanting to both know and not know how the thing looks as it is made.
Finally, and importantly, I actually reuse (cut up and recycle) my previous
work in the creation of new work and while that lets me be destructive, it
also lets me have the pleasant feeling of being a fresh spectator of my own
old work since each painting really carries a bit of the past with it. More
than that, it has let me be a happy cannibal of my own best intentions.
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Mountain (062301)
Acrylic on Canvas 46"x68" 2001
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Acid #9 (080501)
Acrylic on Canvas 52"x72"