LINDA STOJAK
SILENT VOICES
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Linda Stojak Silent Voices
Preview Showcase Exhibition
February 24 - March 26.2017
LewAllenGalleries Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com cover: Untitled (LS15-313), 2015, oil & mixed media on canvas, 72 x 48 inches
Linda Stojak
Silent Voices: Preview Showcase Exhibition
A recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship Award, Linda Stojak imbues her paintings with rich atmosphere and pathos. Some of her figures hover like ghosts, receding into smoky, sensuous darkness, while others are grounded in thick, lugubrious outlines that link firmly with their backgrounds. Close observation of her surfaces of apparently monochromatic color reveals an incredible range of tonality, texture, and finely graded hue. Stojak’s layered canvases of deeply textured, expressivelyapplied oil paint attest to a laborious process that limits her output to only a few paintings each year. Stojak imbues her paintings with rich atmosphere and a reductive sense of suggestion and only the essential. “Linda Stojak delights in the materiality of the oil,” writes art critic Michaél Amy, “a fluid medium allowing her to conjure bodies flipping back and forth between paint and the illusion of almost intangible flesh.” Rather than rooting her figures in detail, Stojak is interested in essential lines and the suggestion of volume and atmosphere. Her careful use of high-keyed color is dramatic in its restraint: reds jolting out from black and gray, or gentle, dreamlike environments of blue. These figures read not as individuals but instead as timeless specters of humanity and femininity, their facial specificity obscured. Referring to both past and present, Stojak’s women are clothed in period dress and formal wear, the fabric itself sometimes unraveling to suggest impermanence, perhaps, or even the effects of time itself upon the body. The presence of a Stojak painting is one that pushes past darkness; these figures play a part as symbols of redemption and connection in the face of their apparent isolation. She says, “My hope is for my work to help people accept the emotions in themselves.” Stojak, recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996, has been reviewed by Art in America and The New York Times. Edward Leffingwell of Art in America wrote of her work, ““There is something hardwon about these anxiously drawn, oddly romantic figures that in their tense grace recall the drawings of Giacometti and Rothenburg.” With a master’s degree from Pratt University, Stojak’s acclaimed painting is included in prominent public and museum collections across the country. 2
Untitled II, 2016, oil & mixed media on canvas, 72 x 48 inches 3
Figure 70, 2015, oil & mixed media on canvas, 60 x 72 inches
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Figure 72, 2012, oil & mixed media on canvas, 72 x 48 inches 5
Untitled (LS13-304), 2013, oil & mixed media on canvas, 60 x 36 inches
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Figure 90, 2015, oil & mixed media on canvas, 72 x 48 inches 7
Untitled (LS07-267), 2007, oil & mixed media on canvas, 60 x 84 inches 8
Untitled, 2016, oil & mixed media on canvas, 72 x 48 inches
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Figure 73, 2012, oil & mixed media on canvas, 60 x 60 inches 10
Linda Stojak
b. 1955
EDUCATION 1980 Pratt Institute, New York, NY, MFA 1978 Arcadia University, Glenside, PA, BFA
2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991
SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2015 Waiting for a Moment, Stux + Haller Gallery, New York, NY 2013 Redux, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY 2012 Tether, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY 2011 From the Moment Past, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY 2008 Molloy College Art Gallery, Rockville Center, NY 2007 Linda Stojak, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY; also, 1991, 1993, 1995-2001, 2004, 2005 Linda Stojak, Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA Linda Stojak, Esther M. Klein Art Gallery, University City Science Center, Philadelphia, PA Linda Stojak, Herter Art Gallery, U of Mass, Amherst, MA SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2015 Group Matrix, Stux + Haller, New York, NY 2014 Finn, again!, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY 2013 Essence/Quintessence, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY 2011 Connections, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Spectrum, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY 2010 Nexus, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY 2009 In Context, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY The Point of Convergence, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Continuum, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY 2008 Confluence, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Constant Aesthetic, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY 2007 A Woman on Paper, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY ART20 2007, The Park Avenue Armory, New York, NY 2006 Why the Nude? Contemporary Approaches, The Arts Students League of NY, New York, NY ART20 2006, The Park Avenue Armory, New York, NY 2005 Focal Point, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY 2004 Narrative Abstraction, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Constant Aesthetic 2004, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY 2003 Coda, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Constant Aesthetic 2003, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY The Perception of Appearance, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA Surface Fragments, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY
Constant Aesthetic 2001, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Pictura Lucida, Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA Paintings, Anderson Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM Surface Tension, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Signs, Codes, and Surfaces, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Contemporary Markings, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Constant Aesthetics III, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Art on Paper, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, UNC, Greensboro, NC Points of Turbulence in Contemporary Art, Main Gallery, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI Surface Issues, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Essence and Persuasion: The Power of Black and White, Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, NY Primal Markers, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Virtuosity, International Art Fair, The Armory, New York, NY Double Indemnity: The Self Unmasked, City without Walls, Newark, NJ Timely & Timeless, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT A Priori Painting, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Constant Aesthetic, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Spirit Markers, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York, NY Texture - Material II, Stephen Haller Fine Art, New York, NY Apocalypse and Resurrection, The Gallery Three Zero, New York, NY Figures in Art, Tavelli/Williams Gallery, Aspen, CO Texture – Material, Stephen Haller Fine Art, New York, NY Directions 1990-1991, Stephen Haller Fine Art, New York, NY
MUSEUM AND PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Brown University, Providence, RI The Harn Museum of Art, Gainsville, FL Molloy College Art Gallery, Rockville Centre, NY The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC GRANTS AND AWARDS 2005 Toblach Grant: Artist Residency, International Aca demy for Painting & Digital Photography, Toblach, Italy 2000 Leeway Foundation Grant (Achievement Award), Distinguished Achievement Award, Arcadia University, Glenside, PA 1996 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship 11
Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com Š 2016 LewAllen Contemporary LLC Artwork Š Linda Stojak