Having started life as a professional photographer, Linda has come as far from that as the imagination can stretch. Linda Clayton’s painting life began late. Her mother, a portrait painter, died and left Linda her paints and she followed the thread that led her past oil paints, brushes and realism to her own vision using oil bars. Linda became quickly hooked by the colors and by the oil sticks in particular. She finds working with these bars thrilling, joyful and full of serendipity.
Artist statement
I am driven by color and shape. When I approach a blank sheet, I clear my mind. I begin making marks- usually with a color that I find annoying or unsettling, just to throw myself off. That color demands another more mitigating color and the adjacent colors begin to form a shape.
I then rotate the paper 360 degrees and all stations in between in order to search for the beginnings of life, which usually manifests with a line, a gesture or an edge.
Just a glimpse, really.
Then the work begins.
So each painting I do is a surprise to me – revealing more of its own truth as I work.
Linda teaches painting at IS183 and her work has appeared in Palette Magazine.
Linda Clayton’s paintings have been sold in:
Art and Chocolate Gallery, Lenox, MA.
Cranwell Hotel, Lenox, MA
Eliza Peet Gallery, Salisbury, CT
The Blue Door Artists Gallery, Fernindina Beach, FL
Stony Creek Gallery, Stony Creek, CT
Vault Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
Nicholas Harrison Gallery, Wellfleet, MA
Art Expo, NYC
Clayton is collected nationally and internationally.