Linen Sculptures

This painting on cut linen canvas by Linda King Ferguson depicts a diamond shaped canvas that is color-blocked into three main sections. The topmost triangular portion of the canvas ...

This painting by Linda King Ferguson is part of her equivalence series, which began as a feminist project; works that subvert the historically male gaze and a material language speaking of gendered concerns. While typically, King Ferguson paints both sides of the canvas and cuts a flap on the the frontside to reveal the color of the back of the canvas, she unexpectedly does the opposite here. The painting is hung from the "frontside" of the canvas, revealing to us the raw edges of her linen canvas, stapled to the stretchers. Two oblong shapes of pink and red dominate the center of the painting. A thin semioval cut has been made inside of both of these shapes. Her color choices first came from Helen Molesworth’s essay, Painting With Ambivalence, published in WACK! Art of the Feminist Revolution. The Essay includes a large reproduction of Mary Heilmann’s 1979 painting...

Linda King Ferguson describes her "Equivalence Series" as social bodies; a re-thinking of Modernist figurative abstraction. They are a discursive formal and reductive language. As fi...

b. Melbourne, Australia Louise Blyton is a reductive artist exploring the romance of raw linen and dry pigment. The artist’s geometrically shaped canvas...

b. Melbourne, Australia Louise Blyton is a reductive artist exploring the romance of raw linen and dry pigment. The artist’s geometrically shaped canvases explore color, light, and form through the visual language of Reductivism, an aesthetic style characterized by streamlined compositions, restricted color, and a reduction of form and means. Identifying with Reductivism’s simplicity, Blyton’s shaped canvases and three-dimensional wall sculptures elevate craftsmanship and process, achieving a compositional clarity that unifies color and form. To construct her works, Blyton covers custom built balsa wood stretchers with raw linen, adorning them with layers of pure pigment or acrylic paint. Each pigment reacts differently to raw linen and requires a specific number of coats to reach the artist’s desired level of saturation. As the artist explains, “I’m always looking for a kind of quietness and harmony when making my works even if the color being used is loud.” The artist creates her own spatial dimension by manipulating the shape of the canvas, which escapes from the flat surface of the wall, confusing its role as a painting. “Rather than responding to the architecture they ask particular attributes of the building to act as support,” as some works appear to climb the surface of the walls, while others straddle columns and corners. Louise Blyton lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia in 1988. Her works are held in significant corporate and private collections in Australia, China, France, United Kingdom, Portugal, and the United States. Since 2000, Blyton has run an artist supply store called, St. Luke Artist Colourman, which specializes in professional paint and raw materials, with her husband David Coles.

b. Melbourne, Australia Louise Blyton is a reductive artist exploring the romance of raw linen and dry pigment. The artist’s geometrically shaped canvases explore color, light, and ...

b. Melbourne, Australia Louise Blyton is a reductive artist exploring the romance of raw linen and dry pigment. The artist’s geometrically shaped canvases explore color, light, and form through the visual language of Reductivism, an aesthetic style characterized by streamlined compositions, restricted color, and a reduction of form and means. Identifying with Reductivism’s simplicity, Blyton’s shaped canvases and three-dimensional wall sculptures elevate craftsmanship and process, achieving a compositional clarity that unifies color and form. To construct her works, Blyton covers custom built balsa wood stretchers with raw linen, adorning them with layers of pure pigment or acrylic paint. Each pigment reacts differently to raw linen and requires a specific number of coats to reach the artist’s desired level of saturation. As the artist explains, “I’m always looking for a kind of quietness and harmony when making my works even if the color being used is loud.” The artist creates her own spatial dimension by manipulating the shape of the canvas, which escapes from the flat surface of the wall, confusing its role as a painting. “Rather than responding to the architecture they ask particular attributes of the building to act as support,” as some works appear to climb the surface of the walls, while others straddle columns and corners. Louise Blyton lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia in 1988. Her works are held in significant corporate and private collections in Australia, China, France, United Kingdom, Portugal, and the United States. Since 2000, Blyton has run an artist supply store called, St. Luke Artist Colourman, which specializes in professional paint and raw materials, with her husband David Coles.

b. Melbourne, Australia Louise Blyton is a reductive artist exploring the romance of raw linen and dry pigment. The artist’s geometrically shaped canvases explore color, light, and form through the visual language of Reductivism, an aesthetic style characterized by streamlined compositions, restricted color, and a reduction of form and means. Identifying with Reductivism’s simplicity, Blyton’s shaped canvases and three-dimensional wall sculptures elevate craftsmanship and process, achieving a compositional clarity that unifies color and form. To construct her works, Blyton covers custom built balsa wood stretchers with raw linen, adorning them with layers of pure pigment or acrylic paint. Each pigment reacts differently to raw linen and requires a specific number of coats to reach the artist’s desired level of saturation. As the artist explains, “I’m always looking for a kind of quietness and harmony when making my works even if the color being used is loud.” The artist creates her own spatial dimension by manipulating the shape of the canvas, which escapes from the flat surface of the wall, confusing its role as a painting. “Rather than responding to the architecture they ask particular attributes of the building to act as support,” as some works appear to climb the surface of the walls, while others straddle columns and corners. Louise Blyton lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia in 1988. Her works are held in significant corporate and private collections in Australia, China, France, United Kingdom, Portugal, and the United States. Since 2000, Blyton has run an artist supply store called, St. Luke Artist Colourman, which specializes in professional paint and raw materials, with her husband David Coles.

In this sculptural piece, Linda King Ferguson has cut a piece of linen canvas into a half-diamond shape, with an ellipsis cut-out close to the scalloped right edge. A red cotton thread completes the second half of the diamond shape, then hangs from the bottom corner, evoking the image of a kite. King Ferguson's paintings are abstractions of the female body. She chooses to use linen...

In this sculptural piece, Linda King Ferguson has cut a piece of linen canvas into a somewhat trapezoidal shape, with a scalloped top edge. A red cotton thread completes the remainder of the diamond shape. King Ferguson's paintings are abstractions of the female body. She chooses to use linen...

Linda King Ferguson describes her "Equivalence Series" as social bodies; a re-thinking of Modernist figurative abstraction. They are a discursive formal and reductive language. As fi...

b. Melbourne, Australia Louise Blyton is a reductive artist exploring the romance of raw linen and dry pigment. The artist’s geometrically shaped canvases explore color, light, and form through the visual language of Reductivism, an aesthetic style characterized by streamlined compositions, restricted color, and a reduction of form and means. Identifying with Reductivism’s simplicity, Blyton’s shaped canvases and three-dimensional wall sculptures elevate craftsmanship and process, achieving a compositional clarity that unifies color and form. To construct her works, Blyton covers custom built balsa wood stretchers with raw linen, adorning them with layers of pure pigment or acrylic paint. Each pigment reacts differently to raw linen and requires a specific number of coats to reach the artist’s desired level of saturation. As the artist explains, “I’m always looking for a kind of quietness and harmony when making my works even if the color being used is loud.” The artist creates her own spatial dimension by manipulating the shape of the canvas, which escapes from the flat surface of the wall, confusing its role as a painting. “Rather than responding to the architecture they ask particular attributes of the building to act as support,” as some works appear to climb the surface of the walls, while others straddle columns and corners. Louise Blyton lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia in 1988. Her works are held in significant corporate and private collections in Australia, China, France, United Kingdom, Portugal, and the United States. Since 2000, Blyton has run an artist supply store called, St. Luke Artist Colourman, which specializes in professional paint and raw materials, with her husband David Coles.

Linda King Ferguson describes her "Equivalence Series" as social bodies; a re-thinking of Modernist figurative abstraction. They are a discursive formal and reductive language. As fi...

Linda King Ferguson describes her "Equivalence Series" as social bodies; a re-thinking of Modernist figurative abstraction. They are a discursive formal and reductive language. As fi...

Linda King Ferguson describes her "Equivalence Series" as social bodies; a re-thinking of Modernist figurative abstraction. They are a discursive formal and reductive language. As fi...

b. Melbourne, Australia Louise Blyton is a reductive artist exploring the romance of raw linen and dry pigment. The artist’s geometrically shaped canvases explore color, light, and form through the visual language of Reductivism, an aesthetic style characterized by streamlined compositions, restricted color, and a reduction of form and means. Identifying with Reductivism’s simplicity, Blyton’s shaped canvases and three-dimensional wall sculptures elevate craftsmanship and process, achieving a compositional clarity that unifies color and form. To construct her works, Blyton covers custom built balsa wood stretchers with raw linen, adorning them with layers of pure pigment or acrylic paint. Each pigment reacts differently to raw linen and requires a specific number of coats to reach the artist’s desired level of saturation. As the artist explains, “I’m always looking for a kind of quietness and harmony when making my works even if the color being used is loud.” The artist creates her own spatial dimension by manipulating the shape of the canvas, which escapes from the flat surface of the wall, confusing its role as a painting. “Rather than responding to the architecture they ask particular attributes of the building to act as support,” as some works appear to climb the surface of the walls, while others straddle columns and corners. Louise Blyton lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia in 1988. Her works are held in significant corporate and private collections in Australia, China, France, United Kingdom, Portugal, and the United States. Since 2000, Blyton has run an artist supply store called, St. Luke Artist Colourman, which specializes in professional paint and raw materials, with her husband David Coles.

b. Melbourne, Australia Louise Blyton is a reductive artist exploring the romance of raw linen and dry pigment. The artist’s geometrically shaped canvases explore color, light, and form through the visual language of Reductivism, an aesthetic style characterized by streamlined compositions, restricted color, and a reduction of form and means. Identifying with Reductivism’s simplicity, Blyton’s shaped canvases and three-dimensional wall sculptures elevate craftsmanship and process, achieving a compositional clarity that unifies color and form. To construct her works, Blyton covers custom built balsa wood stretchers with raw linen, adorning them with layers of pure pigment or acrylic paint. Each pigment reacts differently to raw linen and requires a specific number of coats to reach the artist’s desired level of saturation. As the artist explains, “I’m always looking for a kind of quietness and harmony when making my works even if the color being used is loud.” The artist creates her own spatial dimension by manipulating the shape of the canvas, which escapes from the flat surface of the wall, confusing its role as a painting. “Rather than responding to the architecture they ask particular attributes of the building to act as support,” as some works appear to climb the surface of the walls, while others straddle columns and corners. Louise Blyton lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia in 1988. Her works are held in significant corporate and private collections in Australia, China, France, United Kingdom, Portugal, and the United States. Since 2000, Blyton has run an artist supply store called, St. Luke Artist Colourman, which specializes in professional paint and raw materials, with her husband David Coles.