Artist Info
| Artist’s Statement My artistic practice developed from creative writing and photography to an exploration of alternative art media that led me to collage-making and painting. Today, my art-making centres on combining my writing with the visual arts of painting and photography. For me, each discipline is related and my passion is to create mixed media works that incorporate words, painting and photography using non-traditional materials and methods. Art is my way of expressing and playing with ideas, emotions, experiences and insights and then communicating these things to others. Making art lets me explore the uncharted territory of my mind, and the ebb and flow of life with its endless swirling motion, its tensions and disturbances, and its richness, beauty, and incredible diversity – what Zorba the Greek called “the full catastrophe of life”. I am intrigued by the paradox of life, by the dichotomy between permanence and transience, and by themes of memory, loss, and man’s interactions with others, and with natural forces. As an artist, I’m influenced by everything that I see around me – natural and man-made – the way a squirrel eats a chestnut, the way the sun shines through a wire fence, the exquisitely perfect detailing on a dandelion. All around I see starting points for my art. My ongoing inspiration is found in the real world and its mysteries, and in constant change. I like the alchemy, the surprises involved in the process of making art – choosing the medium and materials and then going with the creative flow. I never know how a piece of art will evolve from its original conception and I love that sense of discovery, of beginning fresh, as if for the first time, every time. I believe that in today’s world art can reveal different ways of seeing and, by doing so, art helps restore beauty and caring into what can seem to be a drab and uncaring world. |
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| Linda Joyce Ott Art & Photo Gallery |
| Bio Linda Joyce Ott is a mixed media artist who creates conceptual and abstract paintings, collages, photography, and 3D boxes. She lives in Hamilton Ontario Canada - halfway between Niagara Falls and Toronto. Highlights July 2010 –Vermont Studio Center Art Residency, supported by an Ontario Arts Council International Residency Grant. June 2010 – Auto Parts photo art magazine launch and photo exhibition at the Artword Gallery in Hamilton. February 2010 – Hamilton Tourism Award nomination for Chrysanthemum photo calendar. Background Linda has honed her skills through courses at Ontario College of Art and Design and at Central Tech in Toronto. From 2004 to 2007, she participated in workshops with Canadian abstract artist, Harold Klunder. In May 2007, she attended the Prairie North Creative Residency in Grande Prairie, Alberta under the mentorship of Harold Klunder and Laura Vickerson. Linda's work has been exhibited in Toronto, Hamilton and Alberta and is in a number of private collections. Her photographs have been published in Art Focus, Photo Life, and Camera Canada magazines, and The Hamilton Spectator. |