ABOUT
LINDA
Linda is a local artist who exhibits and sells her work in various galleries in and around Cape Town. Her preferred medium is acrylics with mixed media, painting in large, quick brushstrokes in an impressionist style. She studied art at high school, working in all mediums including Tempera paints, pastels, charcoal and pencil. After she left school, she attended private oil painting and pottery classes. A few years later, she attended evening painting classes at the Frank Joubert Art School. After a lengthy break and with a few additional art courses under her belt, she continued to research and experiment with different techniques. Linda was privileged enough to have studied under the late Cape Town based artist Koos De Wet and attended drawing and life drawing classes at his gallery as well as working in collaboration with Internationally acclaimed artists, Derric Van Rensberg and Andrew Cooper at Red the gallery.
She has only been painting now fulltime for the past 9 years and when she picked up her brushes again she started by painting a series of old American classic cars and travelled through Cuba to photograph her future subjects. Most of that body of work has been sold both privately and through galleries, and the balance of the pieces now grace the walls of an exclusive classic car showroom at the Radisson Hotel in Cape Town.
Linda is regularly asked to do private and commercial commissioned works. She has exhibited her work for 5 years running at the Tulbagh Spring Arts Festival where she secured her own private venues at the various wine farms and historic establishments. In addition, she has for the past three years held solo exhibitions at the Greyton Artwalk and has also been part of Cape Town’s well known First Thursday Artwalk.
She is currently working on a series of large figurative works and is drawn to a technique where some of the image is left out, leaving the viewer’s eye to complete the picture and also choosing subjects which create intrigue, thus allowing the viewer the freedom to interpret their own story around the painting. Linda teaches art to private groups and holds regular monthly art workshops and facilitates ad hoc private and corporate painting events.
Linda says
“I traveled to Cuba to authenticate my art. I had just completed my painting course with Koos De Wet and had painted my first car portrait as an exercise in pop art. Koos asked if he could keep my painting on consignment in his gallery in order to try and sell it on my behalf. I had been trying unsuccessfully to get into the galleries, one in particular being Red The Gallery in Steenberg. The owner of Red Gallery (David) used to purchase Koos’ art and he popped in one day and saw my red car portrait and when he noticed that I was the artist, he called me and asked if I would paint a car portrait for his gallery. I did and it sold within a week and David then asked if I could do another one for him. I continued like this for a few years and sold countless car portraits through Red Gallery and as each of my car portraits were set against a backdrop of Cuban architecture, I thought it would be wise to travel to Cuba and go and photograph my own subject matter. It was 2015, the year I turned 50 so it was the perfect birthday present to myself. I was there for 5 delightful weeks, traveled right across to all corners of the island in Cadillacs, Pontiacs, Ford Fairlanes and the like as well as using Cuba’s tourist bus service the ‘viasul’. I stayed in Old Havana (The capital) full of the most gorgeous neo classic architecture, open air markets, Cuba’s colorful people, New Havana with it’s art deco architecture, Vinales (the tobacco district) where I hiked the mogotes and tabacco fields, stayed in Casa Particulars in Trinidad, Santiago del Cuba, Cienfuegos and swam in the beautiful turquoise sea down at the beaches in Varadero. Throughout my trip I indulged in a diet of lobster, Cuban Rum& coke and smoked fat Cuban cigars. I salsa danced, sang in restaurants with local musicians, saw a spectacular show at the Havana social club and also in the National Hotel in New Havana. All in all it was an unforgettable trip and experience and I came back with over 3000 photographs.”
Here’s a stitched picture of a painting I did before I went to Cuba which I painted from an image I dragged off the internet. Above is a picture of me standing in front of the exact same building I stumbled across while I was on a horse drawn cart while doing a tour of the city of Old Havana
“No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.”
– Oscar Wilde