Making A Way | Translation
Artists: Linda Bond, Kathy Bruce, Dee Hood, Saskia Krafft, Nathan Margoni, Lake Roberson Newton, TJ Norris, Iviva Olenick, Mandy Cano Villalobos
Statement
For over two decades my artwork has addressed issues of social concern. It primarily explores the mediated experience of global conflict. Working from representation to abstraction, I marry form and content in visually compelling images. My work is a personal attempt to both humanize tragedies and to combat the numbing effects of a media-saturated culture. Typically I work on several projects simultaneously. Using gunpowder and graphite, gouache, blood, embroidery, monoprinting, cut and woven paper, my two and three dimensional work chronicles our contemporary post 9/11 world.
During the past two years I have developed a number of new projects. Woven, examines the words of the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence juxtaposed with news articles about current political and social justice issues that appear contrary to these documents. Using digital and traditional media, these pieces highlight potential threats to democracy and justice for all. The Wall is a collection of handmade paper sheets embedded with visible text and iconography. The re-made sheets were created with paper pulp derived from shredded New York Times pages which hold articles about immigration, the border wall, deportations and refugee camps in the United States. The custom made 8 ½” x 11″ sheets hang together creating a fragile barrier that is easily penetrated, unlike the complex conditions they refer to. The Report is a video animation derived from my reading of the Mueller Report. Highlighting pertinent passages and compiling a list of names mentioned, I created elements that interact with the 448 report pages organized in a gridded backdrop.
My exhibitions often take place in museum and university settings, allowing for broad discussions about both the aesthetic qualities of the work and the content inspiring it. For me, this engagement with the viewing audience is a rewarding and valuable part of my artistic practice.
Bio
Linda Bond’s drawings and installations have been exhibited widely including shows at Kean University, Clark University, Delaware State University, Brandeis University, Simmons College, the Brattleboro Museum, the Cape Cod Art Museum, B’NK’R Munich, Germany, Museo de Arte de Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico and the MFA in Boston. She is currently a Resident Scholar at Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center and her work is included in the Feminist Art Base at the Brooklyn Museum.
Linda has received awards from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, the Chenven Foundation, the Artist Resource Trust, the Foundation for Contemporary Art and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Her work was recently featured in Boston’s ArtScope magazine, Boston Voyager’s Trailblazer series, Rutgers’ Institute for Research on Women spring 2019 publication of Rejoinder and will be included in the forthcoming publications Emergence: the Role of Mindfulness in Creativity, and Loaded: Guns in Contemporary Art. Linda’s twenty year retrospective exhibition at Drexel University, Errors and Omissions, was scheduled for this past April. Because of the global pandemic the show has been postponed until October 2020.
