LINDA BRUCE MA RCA PAINTS
EVERY STROKE BY CHANCE, NEVER REPEATED
LINDA BRUCE
After graduating from the Royal College of Art, Linda freelanced as a printed textile designer. A decade later she bought David Hockney’s old studio. The light is fantastic and plays a spiritual role in the creation of Linda’s new paintings.
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"In 2020 it started, stranded in the studio with no particular place to go, I introverted – I stopped textile design, I looked left, I looked right and left again, then proceeded to cross. Cross to painting – pictures that, necessarily, do not fit neatly into traditional art circles, but paintings that celebrate the exuberance found harum sacrum in the natural world.
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Tropical fish have obvious bounty in colour, movement, swish and swirl. Parrot fish throughout their lives change from one extravagant costume to another, even changing sex, if extra male desired. Picasso fish triggered me into studying Picasso. Lion fish have complex patterns of menace, spectacularly arrayed with venomous quills, spiny featherlike fins, meandering stripes, decorative paraphernalia doubling as camouflage.
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The study and painting of shells rewards well. Conches, murex, cones, turbans, tritans, scallop, cowrie, olive, volute, harp and wentletrap to name a dozen out of hundreds. Each to its own and never a repeat. You'll find exaggerated whorls, spiral ribs and radial lamellae.
The words come after the picture, sometimes in an odd scatter of calligraphy, an interesting scientific fact, a leading question or frivolous fun, such as a misquoted poem or a dance routine. Occasionally wisdom. I enjoy the Latin names, many of them seem onomatopoeic as to the actual look of the creature. I want to open others' eyes to look see, see the delights within living creatures, bright and beautiful."
