Linda Christensen, painter
Pursuing imperfection, abstraction in a bowl of Cheerios, and a striking take on underpainting
My favorite questions for these stories are those leading an interviewee to share a new insight, an amusing anecdote, an art or cooking tip, or someone who inspires their work. When I asked accomplished painter Lori Mehta with whom she would like to trade paintings, she immediately replied Linda Christensen, and that led directly to today’s story.
I admire in Linda’s paintings the energetic use of color, sophisticated blend of figurative and abstract elements, and deliberate imprecision, such as the unnatural length of an arm or the shape of a foot. Viewing Linda’s paintings in this story or on her Instagram can be deceptive. The canvases are often huge, and women are painted life size, deliberate distortions notwithstanding. If you aren’t near the mostly West Coast galleries that show her paintings—see the list at the end of this story—you can take a virtual tour of Linda’s solo show at the Bakersfield Museum of Art.
Some of her paintings show women occupying the quiet, interstitial moments that we don’t usually witness, such as in the kitchen between tasks or finally getting off their feet after a long day. Despite the often-abstract elements in the environments, there’s enough there for our brains to fill in the detail or the backstory. Linda intentionally and unapologetically paints faces lacking detail to not distract from the mood she is communicating in the subject’s bodily form.
As a child, Linda drew on newsprint that her mother acquired from the local newspaper. Maybe that’s the root of Linda’s tendency to paint large—a recent painting is 6’ x 9’. She says tracing over the figures in the fashion pages of the San Francisco Chronicle was how she learned to draw and understand how body parts relate to one another.
Growing up in the natural environment of Northern California—where she continues to live—with its abundant beaches and agricultural fields, informs her paintings. Her mother was her first muse. It was through observing her that Linda became aware of the richness of what body language could convey.
A fun fact is that Linda may have crossed paths with Richard Diebenkorn, who lived next door to her aunt and uncle. She learned much later that her cousins helped build his studio and that her aunt and uncle would join the Diebenkorns for martinis on their lawn.
Linda left art school midstream to focus on family and child raising. She recalls thinking, “When I get the time, I'm going to be a painter. It was such a far-fetched dream.“ But fortunately for us, Linda returned to complete art school in her 40s and recalls a series she made themed When She Gets the Time. “I painted a series of this woman waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting her whole life to be who she wanted to be,” Linda says.
I’ve heard people say that all paintings are autobiographical, and this is true of Linda’s paintings. She says that she is the woman in her paintings, and it’s the same figure in every painting. “It's the same hair. It's the same dress. It’s no shoes, or sandals, which are like Birkenstocks. I will paint the cast of characters, pretty much that same moment, over and over. But of course, it's not going to be the same because I'm not the same. It's a different time in my life, a different approach.”
You were influenced by the Bay Area figurative painters, specifically David Park. But you're painting in a style that's uniquely your own. How did you converge on your distinct style?
I returned to school to finish my degree, and I was introduced to the Bay Area figurative painters. I'd never seen any of their work, and I realized they were of my temperament and I felt I had something to relate to. I'd never seen anybody paint so loosely and so emotionally. It really set my painting career on course.
Once I saw that there were artists that painted in a loose painterly style, I found that I had the support to continue in my own personal style. I copied them at first and eventually, I found my voice, which is a feminine perspective with more attention to the nuances of emotion. I found that I paint emotion using the female figure as the vehicle. I'm trying to get you to feel something, to be moved by familiarity. The way I apply the paint, the body language of the figure, and a feeling for nostalgia has become my signature.
You said the Bay Area figurative painters were reflecting your temperament.
Painting for me is all about instinct, and about how things feel. I'm not precise, I don’t plan the composition out, nor do I know what the palette will include. I work with impulse and then later I will edit a bit.
Often, I get the feeling that I am painting in the dark and using what I feel. [The Bay Area figurative painters] were imperfect, and they were creating images that weren't quite right. The proportions were off, or the paint was applied unevenly, but it was refreshing that I could see myself in this approach. When the painting becomes too cleaned up, it loses its freshness and impressions of reality.
That makes me wonder—some people say you need to know the rules before you can break them. Do you have a point of view about that?
I attended UC Santa Cruz and classes weren’t about “teaching,” but instead they let the students find their own way. I have applied this perspective to my current work as well; I find my way and at times I let the struggle show. I am interested in understanding the planes of the face, but find myself balking at the academics of it all. I want to stay naïve and just hint at the face. I get to engage my emotional side while working with a palette knife in a more general way with the face. The face can tell a different story than the body, so my focus is more about the emotion felt in the language of the body rather than the face. I paint what feels good, not what feels right.
You said you don't have a plan when you start a painting. When you have this big blank canvas, you're not thinking, "Oh, I'm going to paint a woman on the beach?" You just start painting and see where it goes?
I don't know how to start. I get asked this a lot. Do I start with an underpainting? Do I start with a line drawing? Do I just start with one color? Do I have an idea? Do I have a photo? [I love this answer and it works for Linda.]
The underpainting helps a lot [more about that in a minute]. I don't have to know anything. It comes from the mixed paint off my palette from the night before, and it just goes onto a blank canvas. And it just goes on like butter on toast.
In my opinion, what makes a painting good is how much information you have imparted onto that painting about yourself.
Your underpainting is often elaborate patterns or shapes.
Yes. Once I put those patches of color on, I'll go back with a smaller brush and add polka dots, or lines, or use a big paintbrush full of black and add in smaller elements. I’ll work with the composition a little bit, knowing it’s probably not going to show or maybe it will. It's that unknown.
I rarely cover an underpainting completely, or I put a thin glaze over it so it can show through.
Tell me about your paintings with torn paper.
I hold a scrap of paper, which is tiny, up to my eye, and I get the scale that I want in the painting, and then I take a photo. Then I paint from that photo. On the canvas, the piece of paper looks like a large collaged element. I’ve started including a piece of torn paper out of one of my art books to paint into the composition as a surprise and to confuse myself and the viewer. Everything else feels familiar but something is new and different. It’s a challenge that I have found exciting.
Why do you play black and white films in the background when you're painting?
I have done that for so long. I do whatever helps me to stay in the studio because it's very anxiety-producing to create art. [Before I paint] I make sure I've called my mother, done my errands, gone to the gym, and I've eaten something. I have a high expectation of myself and the painting session and I can sometimes feel frustrated. [She explains that it’s soothing to listen to a classic movie with a simple plot that she’s seen many times before, and that because the visual is grayscale it doesn’t distract her.]
Do you work on more than one painting at a time?
I paint one painting until it's finished. It’s like reading a novel where you know if you stay with it, you remember what's happening and remember the characters. That's how it feels when I'm painting a painting. I know where I left off. Staying with it honors the time I've already put in.
Is it tough then to go back later to rework a painting after some time has passed?
Oh, yes. I want to change just a few things but then before you know it the whole painting gets reworked. At a Squeak Carnwath lecture, I asked whether she ever reworks a painting. She said: "No, that was then. When I painted that, I was that person, and I'm honoring that. I have never worked back into a painting. That's who I was, flaws and all.” I respect that but it’s hard to refrain from going back in.
You’ve said you are an observer. Tell me more about this observation idea.
We're always asked what we're going to be when we grow up, and I knew I was going to be a watcher. I was going to sit on the edge of the curb and watch this parade go by.
There was a lot of chaos in my family, so I was watching to see what was going to happen. I watch now because I'm interested in what happens to people in their daily lives and what they are like when they have a moment to themselves.
I watch women because their bodies can say so much. There is their public persona, but I wait and watch for the interior emotions to emerge. When they are tethering back to their inner self and they're feeling something, it registers in their body.
In most of your paintings, the women's faces are not the detail that you're focusing on. Is it because you want to show that emotion more in the body?
Yes. We all know where the eyes, nose, mouth, go. And as soon as I put those in, it takes so much out of the painting. It makes you change your focus, distracting.
As a child, I had to know what was going on. My mother was my first muse. I had to watch her because what she said wasn't really what was happening.
Nature is prominent in your paintings. Do you take your sketchbook to the beach?
No, I’m more of an observer of human nature rather than trying to get my feelings down in a sketch. As a child, we were at the beach often. My mom felt her best when she was there, and that horizon line where sky meets water meets sand became very important to me. Those predictable bands of color and width were soothing to me. I put my work in different categories [this is how paintings are grouped on her website]. Being in nature is where you canlet go of yourself and take those deep breaths. You become someone new and connected. I have three categories for my paintings where I find times that allow for the self to reflect: Mundane Tasks, Nature, and Musings. [They are about when] you are having a private moment and you're thinking or editing. You're having a delicious moment with yourself.
You’ve said aspects of your childhood were foundational for your art.
I was a middle daughter of three in a chaotic household. There were probably six elements of art training that I had before I was eight years old.
My exposure to line drawing by a professional artist in a Disney coloring book was training for me. I saw how the line was used to emphasize certain things in the drawing. It was very soothing and relaxing to be on the floor and coloring. To this day, a box of crayons and rough newsprint brings back poignant memories.
The horizon line, where sky meets water meets sand has been part of my childhood experiences and memories. I put it in all my work. Whether it's outdoors or indoors, there's a structure that’s like the “brown rice and vegetables” of the painting [Spoken like a person raised in Berkeley].
This structure is used to balance the more difficult aspects of the painting just as in life: The balance between what you know you can rely on and the more challenging parts of life.
I learned how to create abstract compositions by taking a [spoonful] from my bowl of Cheerios and watching the composition change and then change again and then change again with each bite while watching the Cheerios float in the white milk. The negative space of the milk became larger as time went on, which interested me. It was something I learned while playing with my food, but came to serve me as I include abstract passages in my work.
As for the pattern, my dad was an agricultural broker in the Salinas Valley, California. We drove to different fields such as apple orchards, artichoke fields, or strawberry fields. I was in the backseat with my two sisters seeing these rows repeating themselves. I saw the predictability of this view and it was the same each time we went to work with our Dad. There was that sense of stability [in the landscape] in knowing what's going to happen next, just like children wanting to watch the same movie over and over. This patterning has shown up in my work for years and I believe this was imprinted when I was very young.
Do you ever try to place constraints on yourself when you paint?
I do. I sometimes create an obstacle or problem to solve on the painting just to keep things interesting. Recently, I had the figure very far to the right and edge of the composition. How am I going to get out of this situation? How am I to get the eye to travel around the painting when the focal point is so far to one side? This is not so much a constraint but an “intentional circumstance.”
What’s been your busiest time?
At one point, I was producing 100 paintings a year. It was crazy in the 2000s, when many people had discretionary funds to spend. Now, years later, the work is more time consuming and takes me longer. I’m still busy, but the work is more satisfying.
Were those paintings in the same style that you're painting in now?
They were a lot looser and more abstract. I would find the figure in the abstract underpainting and tease her out. The background was not a recognizable landscape, but shapes.
For the galleries that carry your paintings now, do you choose which paintings of yours go to which of those galleries?
Yes. If I'm painting for a show, I will present the images to the owner of the gallery, and they'll select ones that work best.
What's the best advice you received about being an artist or making art?
It wasn't advice from an art teacher while in school but from the woman who helped me plan my wedding reception. She said the more you can personalize the room, the more enjoyable the experience will be for your guests.
As much of yourself as you can bring in, the more personalized you can make it, the more interesting it is for the viewer. I ask: Am I painting for myself? Is there a holding back or can I say more? An artist must be honest with oneself and be honest as to who they are.
You mentioned David Park as an influence. Who are other artists do you admire?
Edward Hopper because there was that mystery and often that lone, solitary figure—the woman by herself. There was a little bit of danger, that mood lighting, and that focus just on her.
Dorothea Lange, the photographer. She captured the angst of the woman during the dust bowl. What I learned from her was how women use their arms. In a lot of my paintings, the arms are up. It feels like the women are making a shelter. There's a buffer between them and the world, and they're fixing their hair, or they're shading from the sun, or they're adjusting a hat, or the arms are up and used in some way.
I love Sean Scully. He paints stripes. He used to do detailed, tight line work, and now he's using a big wide brush. It's so juicy and bold and gutsy. It’s just stripes, and they are so powerful.
I just painted a torn paper painting, and I put a chunk of Scully in it and some Matisse too.
Are you adding torn paper you’ve painted to add texture?
I'm big on contrast and I like a dark shadow. I like to punctuate. I have to have black in there somewhere, or stripes, or something with high contrast. I play with opposites. To have something that looks like a nice painting and then throw something on top of it is a little bit disturbing. People ask why I do that, and it's to keep myself interested.
Do you have a painting of yours that you won't sell?
It is a painting of my daughter with her dog Bello. I’d never painted a dog before. She called me on the phone when I was working on this piece, and she said, "Mom, Bello just died." I put down the paintbrush and I couldn't paint on that painting again. This dog was like her child.
The stopping place was magical. I could have kept working on it and made that dog more realistic. It wasn't a finished painting, but I loved how it just stopped and how complete it feels.
Lightning round questions
Most memorable art viewing experience. Early on, seeing David Park and Diebenkorn’s work hooked me in for so, so long. Then, I wasn't as impressed because I saw their masculine approach and realized, "Oh, I'm separate from them. I have my own voice." That was really a fun thing to notice about my work, that I wasn't just copying somebody.
Most memorable meal you've ever had. My first love is bread and I make it my job to rate the bread around the city. Tartine Bakery in San Francisco, where you're only allowed to buy a limited number of loaves, is one of my favorite bread experiences along with a Michelin star restaurant Petite Crenn in San Francisco, where the bread was charred over an open fire.
You are having a dinner party with six people, living or dead. Who is coming? The Bay Area figurative painters. My friend Diana was dating a gallery owner who represented many of them during at that time and I heard about their many dinner parties. So it would be Elmer Bischoff, Richard Diebenkorn, David Park, Nathan Oliveira, and Manuel Neri.
Palate & Palette menu
Here’s what I would serve if Linda came for dinner, which she is invited to do:
Via Carota’s insalata verde
A trio of tartines on Bonny Breads (the closest we can get to Tartine bread): Ricotta, fig, and honey; avocado with dukkah and drizzle of pumpkin seed oil; goat cheese, heirloom tomatoes, and torn basil
Chocolate mousse
Where to find Linda Christensen (and you should!)
Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID
Sue Greenwood Fine Art, Laguna Beach, CA
Winfield Gallery, Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA
RAM Gallery, Bakersfield, CA
Stremmel Gallery, Reno, NV
Julie Nester Gallery, Park City, UT
It's funny because when I first scrolled through to get a feeling for Christensen's work I immediately thought of Diebenkorn. Beautiful, beachy shades of blue in her paintings. The scale must be impressive.