The art of Linda Colsh explores humanist themes in three areas of interest: people growing old, the environment, and movement of people between cultures. Her interest in people and the cultures they inhabit derives from more than a quarter century living as an American expat in Europe and Asia. She builds layered artworks from her photographs, drawings, writings and memories.
Each work begins with plain cloth or paper that she alters with paint, stain, dye, discharge and ink. Her process is weighted to designing and preparing content before layering and stitching together. In addition to direct drawing and painting, she uses design software to develop her images for silkscreen or digital printing. Expanding on her incorporation of paper in art quilts, she often recycles and repurposes used coffee filters in installations and sculptural works often in the form of scrolls.
Her instinct is to work in a minimal neutral palette, taking advantage of the widest possible value range from dark to light, a preference derived from examining Renaissance chiarascuro drawings and the work of modern screenprint artists. Preferring the unnoticed, the displaced and the invisible, she chooses her subject matter from city streets or rural woods and creeks. She strips away context and reworks imagery with new narratives and imagined scenarios.
A lifelong artist, Linda Colsh exhibits internationally. Highlights include Latvia’s International Textile & Fibre Art Triennial, the Fuller Craft Biennial and several Fiber Art Now Excellence in Fibers exhibitions. Her career includes solo exhibitions in Germany, Belgium, Hungary, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Korea, and the United States. She has juried and judged major international exhibitions including Quilt Nihon, Visions and Quilt National and curated exhibitions for the National Quilt Museum and venues in Europe and America. Her work is published worldwide and is held in public, private and corporate collections, including the Collection of John M. Walsh III, Lore Degenstein Gallery Permanent Collection, International Quilt Museum and Germany’s Nordwolle Textile Museum. Among her awards are the European Quilt Triennial first prize, Maryland Federation of Art’s Art on Paper Juror’s Choice Award and Nihon Vogue’s Quilts Japan Prize.
Linda Colsh served on the Advisory Board and Acquisition Committee of the International Quilt Museum. She also served as a Board member and Secretary of Studio Art Quilt Associates. In addition to her work on several SAQA committees; she was the organization’s first Representative for the Europe & Middle East region.
