I think I can guess why these paintings found such an understanding audience. It’s because they tap into a modern theme, controversy to some; because this is relevant art with political and social overtones — probably not the first topics arising in our minds when confronted with still life. But in this case (well, maybe in most) it’s best to look first and think next, — in other words, shed the preconditions of the genre. Still life painters usually seeks to highlight the aesthetics of the subjects, reshuffling composition, color, perspective and other elements, and, so does the artist here. But by including a piece of plastic, she evokes a string of current issues and interweaves them into the aesthetic processing. As a result, the viewers get the bonus of being challenged with the aesthetics of modern living — and in an aesthetic way too.
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You know probably at least one movie where a shrink tells a patient: “Think about your most beautiful memory, imagine the place where you felt most safe as a child.” Well, think about your most beautiful memory and imagine the place where you felt most safe as a child. But if you are having trouble doing that on the spot, these black and white portraits may just strike the spark of semi-spontaneous reminiscence and lead you to the haven of spotless past. These portraits are like portals, and the sting and the rush you might feel going through one is the painful recognition of the gap between its two ends. Maybe I should have taken psychology in university.
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Linda Lucas Hardy is an American artist specializing in colored pencil painting. I browsed her website and several other links offered on this page and learned about the medium and some of its unique techniques; I became enthralled with its congenial creative problems and the surprising, sometimes astonishing solutions that it thereupon suggests. But in today’s review I would like to focus on Linda Lucas Hardy’s individual accomplishments, particularly in the genre of still life. Though the following interpretation may diverge from the artist’s intended meaning, it still fits with her artistic credo of being an “entertainer at heart,” while capturing the “conflicting forces between light and dark.”
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