Dawn Linden - Artist 

"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars." - Walt Whitman

That was the starry-eyed yearbook quotation beneath my graduation photo, as I stared off into space, the profound sentiments of a seventeen-year-old girl from the Pocono Mountains heading out into the world to be an artist.
Wide-eyed and optimistic then, fifty years later, Whitman's poetic revision of the metaphysical axiom, "Above, all is below, Below, all is above," remains close to my heart.
 

Or, to quote someone I know, bringing forth his pearls of wisdom from an acid trip, "Everything is everything".

I'd like to think my paintings emerge from that big, fertile stomping ground.

My early paper collage work evolved into paintings that mashed up the boundaries of inside and outside space. "Inside Out" revisioned the content of forms, shapeshifting "anything into anything". My collection of vintage erotic playing cards was an important, obscene resource for my human "skins".

"Nature Noir" and "Cat's Squirrel" are an edited collection of years of work commemorating the life we share with the other 8.7 million species on this magical, blue planet Earth. The squirrels in the paintings were all my friends..sort of, peanuts helped. And the rest of the work is a history of nature and my imaginings, inspired by travel, music, metaphysics and the Poconos.

The past ten years and the luxury of a proper studio invited new ways of working, also the acquisition of toys, my new partners in crime. An entire studio corner is devoted to dollhouses of different vintages and materials, with heaps of furnishings always tossed about, thanks to the raccoons that enter through the cat door. My early editions of Monster High dolls, before they were stigmatized and pulled off the market for their age-inappropriate sexuality, fill up two glass cabinets. And then there are the shelves of tiny toys, of every ilk and lineage.

The paintings are created from my edits as the creative film director. I never know who will be a star or in what context they will appear...in the creepy house with peeling wallpaper? out in the freezing snow? beside the hole of a pack rat den in Montana? With an arsenal of offbeat lighting, it's a subconscious quest of trial and motion that unfolds over several hours, hoping for "it" to materialize.

"Water Vapours" is a body of work in progress, a return to direct
communication with nature while forcing my hand and eye to work, yes, more fluidly. The water images are captured by the crystallography technique refined by Veda Austin. They are challenging in their formal complexity and require a psychic reading to clarify the layers of imagery buried within each frame. However, clouds are truly the most vaporous, elusive, and unforgiving of all the subjects I've ever painted. My brilliant challenger is no less than the sky itself, an open-ended
canvas painted into physicality with light and water. We'll see how it goes.