Linwood Hart

Linwood Hart: Artist’s Statement

" So, how has it been going since the last time we met?"
Assessing where I am at artistically is something I find mildly stressful
but when it is all down on paper...... satisfying.

How have I been doing?
I have slowly discovered what I thought was my continual conflict
between my desire for total abstraction in my painting and my desire
for exacting photographic imagery in my photography was not really a conflict.
It might be someone else's but it is not mine.

Painting and photography are the visual cues to
that I use to access memory most successfully and combining them
is what I enjoy.

I use my camera every day in order to create a visual journal. The images
act as memory cues and are uncompromising and authoritative in the their
documentation. Painting can be just as uncompromising and authoritative
even in the abstracted, layered method that I use.

Combing the two is what I enjoy, that it had to be one
or the other, or a certain combination of the two to make it more palitable
or accessible were built around my own fears of nonconformity and desires for acceptance.

So how am I doing? Just fine. I have have found time to paint and shoot photos
and I like doing both!

Linwood Hart: Methods and Materials

I paint with acrylics and sometimes embed paper and fiber materials within the paint as I work.
Multiple layers are built up until at some point I start to scrape, scar and melt the canvas to create the surface and texture I am seeking. It is in the continual process of covering up then revealing of the undercoats that my paintings come forward or recede on the canvas. Some paintings become almost totally exposed while others become obliterated by the last application of paint or materials. Painting sometimes allows me to penetrate that outer shell, to cut back through, scrape away and reveal some horrible or happy realization.

About Linwood Hart

A native of Oxford, N.C., Hart has exhibited in several invitational and juried shows in the Triangle and was awarded 2nd place in the most recent Durham Art Guild Juried Show by juror Beverly McIver. He was also featured in a four person show at the Durham Art Guild. He lives in Durham.