LINDA GRIGGS
Linda Griggs is a representational painter whose work deals with middle-American everyday life. Her current work focuses on comfort in fraught times.

She received her Bachelor in Studio Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University and her Master of Fine Arts from Hunter College.
Her work has been included in numerous museum, gallery and university exhibitions. She has had solo shows at ADO, Christopher Stout and Carolyn J Roy Galleries in NYC and Hampden Gallery, UMass Amherst.
Past group exhibitions include the Iwami Art Museum in Japan, the Leubsdorf Gallery at Hunter College, Gahlberg Gallery at the College of DuPage, the Wustum Museum, ABC No Rio, PS122 and the New York Public Library.
Fellowships include the MacDowell and Millay Colonies and the LES Rotating Studio Program.
Her work is in the collections of JP Morgan Chase, Eileen Schwab, Therese Lichtenstein, Rich Timperio, Paul Bridgewater, Brian Rutenberg, and Bob Crozier among others.
As an artist-curator Griggs has created or assisted on 22 exhibitions and two art fair booths.
Her exhibitions have been reviewed and her own work published in PBS Arts Watch, ARTslant Worldwide, VisualArts Daily, Cover, Live Mag, WG Williamsburg Greenpoint, Hampshire Daily Gazette, Philadelphia Inquirer, Artscope Magazine, The Milwaukee Journal and HX.
From 2017 to 2020 she served as Chair of Programming for The Clemente. Her Programming Committee created a multi-language Open Call and a diverse, external review panel resulting in exhibition opportunities for over 500 artists. Under her direction, attendance at Open Studios increased by 1/3rd.
In 2007 she created E32: Energy 3rd Tuesday, an art projection-crit-party. In 1995 she created Scope Art Gallery, a multi-room virtual gallery space.
Linda Griggs lives and works in New York City.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

"Comfort and Loss" presents two sets of images: one of losses resulting from the Pandemic, entrenched police racism, and the destruction of historic NYC sacred spaces and parks as the result of surging real estate greed; and the other of places and memories that offered tranquility in the face of those losses. As I worried about the validity of doing comforting images, I remembered the article “Vermeer in Bosnia” by Lawrence Weschler which discusses the importance of solace in the face of brutality. One of my places of comfort was our public pool. Every age, race, ability and class was represented. Looking at these paintings, my friend Frank Walsh made the heartening statement, “The public pool is a great indicator of a civil society.” When we were able to travel again, my sister’s backyard pool, glowing at night, was also beautiful to me. There are no people in the water, which some assess as a reaction to the loss of human contact during the pandemic, but for me, undisturbed water is tranquilizing. In the merge, loss is acknowledged but comfort is available. Perhaps this simply a response to the complex human duality of being surrounded by beauty while bearing the weight of loss.

"First Day of Vacation" does its best to remind you that good times will come again. This open ended subject looks at subjects as varied as a plastic cup of cocktail and Biscoff cookies on a tray table and hopes to inspire that sigh of relief that comes when your holiday has started. It looks at the Statue of Liberty from the Circle Line tour through the screens of the tourists capturing an icon of democracy for themselves. Girls climb a fire escape in bikinis to sun themselves on the roof and chat. In a backyard, the tanning pool is inflated and hooked up to the hose. The water is spraying like the fountains at Versailles.