Linda Herritt
Linda Herritt
Workspace Program Resident 2016
Text-based installations constructed of common materials like tape, yarn, bits of fabric, and photographs are my primary focus. Overlaid onto a digitally warped grid, the text uses lists to distill a specific cultural phenomenon: bands playing one night in Brooklyn, Chinese brushstrokes named for animals, or of the lyrical brand names of pharmaceuticals. For the Workspace Residency, I wanted to work with paper to create text-based pieces that were like my drawings or installations, but which exploited qualities I could only achieve with handmade paper.
The papermaking process is so physical and engaging that learning the different approaches was pure pleasure. Like many of the materials I commonly use, the pulp color was integral to the material, not a skin on the surface like paint. The project defined itself incrementally from test after test, with many intervening missteps.
My work often incorporates 2D illusions of depth integrated with sculpture elements. Over the course of the residency I began to see how repeating and layering elements could be used to create a strong illusion of depth. Using rigid forms in heavy cotton allowed us to cast the silhouettes. Repeating these in darker and lighter colors, we created a three-layer sandwich using stencil and blow-out techniques. Peeling the mylar stills off the wet paper was a delicate operation requiring many hands and eye droppers. Some of the dark blowouts were left soft to create a shadow effect. Sections were torn or left open. Photo transfers and fabric collage were inserted between the layers to sporadically interrupt the illusion of depth.
My final project, Colors in Black and White uses a graphic mixture of neutral or gray-scale tones for a text that lists the color names of commercial lipsticks or interior paints, like “dog’s ear,” “baby girl,” “cyber,” or “teardrop.” The work uses this evocative found poetry to present a mental picture at odds with the visual object.
It was a privilege to have access to such a well-appointed papermaking studio and to develop a fresh project in an entirely new medium, guided by expert papermakers. With irrepressible good nature, Studio Collaborator Amy Jacobs brought me from the bare basics through a full spectrum of trial and error to a realization of my ideas. I appreciated the openness to experimentation, the deep knowledge of the studio collaborators, and the opportunity to freely explore the possibilities of the medium.
—Linda Heritt, 2016
In the Studio
About the Artist
Linda Herritt received her MFA from the University of Montana and BFA from Ohio State University. Her installations and drawings have been exhibited in one and two person exhibitions at Smack Mellon and the Boiler (Pierogi), Brooklyn, New York; Valentine Gallery, Queens, New York; the Peter Fingesten Gallery, New York; 1K Project Space, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Pierogi, Brooklyn, New York; the San Francisco Art Institute, California; Florence Lynch Gallery, New York; The Frist Center for the Arts, Nashville, Tennessee; and Art&Idea, Mexico City, Mexico. She has exhibited in group shows at Pierogi in Brooklyn; the Drawing Center, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam; and Galería OMR, Mexico City, among others. Fellowships include a Brooklyn Artists Fund Grant (2017), a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (2015), a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant, and a NEA Sculpture Fellowship. In 2016, she was selected for a Workspace Residency at Dieu Donné in New York. She participated in the International Artist in Residence Program in Vienna, with US residencies at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, Art/Omi, and the Marie Walsh Sharpe New York Studio Program. Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times and Art in America. Linda Herritt teaches art at Pace University in Manhattan, and lives and works in Brooklyn. (Source: Artist’s website)
For more information, please visit their website: http://www.lindaherritt.com/