Biography
Linda Atkinson is a Virginia artist living and working in Botetourt County. She graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a BFA in Sculpture and California College of Arts and Crafts with a MFA in Sculpture. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Atlanta. She spent 15 years in California, and taught sculpture and 3-D design at the University of California/Santa Cruz. She taught drawing, sculpture and art history as adjunct faculty at Radford University, Hollins University, Roanoke College and Virginia Western Community College in Virginia. Presently she maintains a gallery and studio in her home in Fincastle, Virginia.
Statement:
I think of my sculptures as visual poems. I like making sculptures of genres we usually think of for paintings: landscape, still life, the figure. I’m interested in expressing actions or characteristics that address the human condition, and translate emotions into image, to invent objects which mystify yet beg meaning. I want these objects I make to have weight and presence, to provoke curiosity, to be multi-faceted, to be at times humorous, to be profound, and to have heart.
For me, art making is a deeply personal activity, and often the process of making the objects takes over before any specific meaning is revealed. I like making things, and things usually come together in a formal sense first. I select images and elements for my sculptures that are symbolic and multifaceted. Putting elements together, I strive for the same sort of compactness and clarity that poetry often delivers. The meaning becomes an allegory or metaphor, or even a pun. I’m looking for a visual experience that is satisfying to me and unfolds with the making.
Selected Museum Group Museum Exhibitions:
1996 City Art Show Art museum of Western Virginia, Roanoke, VA juried
1996 The Exquisite Corpse and Other Oddities, Fayetteville Museum, Fayetteville, NC invitational
1994 Vision and Function: Recent Work by Virginia Sculptors, Art Museum of Western Virginia, Roanoke, VA invitational
1987 54th Annual Regional Juried Exhibition, Arnot Museum, Elmira, NY juried
1985 The Art Museum Annual: Works on/of Paper and Clay, Santa Cruz County Museum, Santa Cruz, CA
1984 The Sculpture Show, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA
Selected Group Exhibitions:
2017 The Market Gallery, Roanoke, Virginia
2017 bj spoke gallery EXPO 36, Huntington, New York
1999 Roanoke/Wonju International Art Exchange Exhibition, Olin Hall Galleries, Roanoke College, Salem, VA
1997 Loving the Land: Exploring Southern Regionalism, Blue Spiral Gallery, Ashville, NC
1996 Studio Artists, Somerhill Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC
1996 Sculpture and Painting, Hodges Taylor Gallery, Charlotte, VA
1993 The Gardening of Art, Dorothy McRae Gallery, Atlanta, GA
1991 New Artist Show, Cudahys Gallery, Richmond, VA
1986 Small Works Exhibition, Washington Square Galleries, New York University, NY, NY
1984 Three Sculptors: Robert Arneson, David Gilhooly, Linda Atkinson, Hoeger- Thompson Gallery, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA