The first monograph dedicated to her work, this catalog highlights the intense and intricate practice of Linda Stark. Her tremendously visceral, graphic, and tactile paintings, both mesmerizing and unsettling, depict the human body as well the lived experience.
Linda Stark: Runaway Love was the first major survey of the Los Angeles painter’s work, and the catalog was the first monograph published about her work. The exhibition featured 37 paintings from collections across the country. Inspired by moments from her personal experiences—also detailed in the catalog—Stark’s obsessively intricate and layered, abstract paintings reference the human body, natural forces, religion, and pop culture. Diverse in subject, her works serve as forays into the act of looking and the practice of painting itself.
At first glance the works are quite “feminine” in style, but with continued attention they are seen more accurately as human, both in style and embodiment. An essay by Colin Gardner explores the issues of time and ecstacy present in her work, comparing paint to flesh while examining the role human experience in Stark’s work.
The material nature of the paintings, in their thick, tactile depictions and visceral, elaborate imagery, allows them to be seen not only as images but as objects. The painstaking process of layering and formation, and the often year-long labor put into each work, reference the act of painting as well as the human effort that goes into such involved technique.
Since being shown at MCASB, Linda Stark has shown at Jenny’s, Los Angeles (2017); Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (2017); Orange County Museum of Art (2017); University of California Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (2013); and Vincent Price Art Museum (2013).
Most recently, Linda Stark will be among the artists included in the Hammer Museum’s upcoming show, Made in L.A. 2018, the fourth iteration of the Hammer’s biennial exhibition, continuing to highlight the practices of artists working throughout Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. The exhibition will be on view Summer 2018: June 3 - September 2.
Produced in conjunction with the exhibition at SBCAF of the same name, September 7 - October 27, 2002.
SOFTCOVER, 54 pages, 25 black & white and color photographs and images of paintings, L x H 7.25” x 10.25”
PUBLICATION DATE - 2002
