Linnea Pergola
Linnea Pergola's desire to express her unique creativity is the driving force which inspires and guides her to meld the diverse elements of drama and naive charm in her multi-media paintings and serigraphs. Pergola's body of work is a collection of captivating and enchanting portrayals of life infused with fantasy to reveal the artist's pure and unaffected response to her subject. Familiar urban landmarks around the world become animated by bright colours and forms. Her gift is to mix all these intricate elements into a kaleidoscope of potent imagery. Like most of her work in this medium, many of her original silk-screens contain hot stamping in silver which creates a further layer of reflective lights.
A long ago instructor encouraged Pergola to experiment with new mediums and techniques and introduced her to the intricacy and contrasts that can be achieved through the mastery of pen and ink. Finding this exacting and difficult medium rewarding. Pergola utilized its distinctive characteristics to compose the singular style of her art. Once a subject inspires Pergola, it is transformed by the artist into a new reality. Often the image is changed before the very first line is placed upon the canvas or paper, while other times the image gradually changes as the artist interacts with the image.
To begin, Pergola creates a detailed drawing with pen and black India Ink. The artist then gives a stronger sense of depth to the scene by adding gray shadows with a brush and diluted black India ink. All the while, Pergola must anticipate the visual effect of every pen and brush stroke-India ink is a very unforgiving medium. Oil paint is used to give additional detail and visual excitement by coloring some or all of the empty areas of canvas or paper. When using color in selected areas only, Pergola focuses the viewer s attention on the individual elements she feels are most significant within the overall image.
Recently, the art of Linnea Pergola has been featured in such galleries as the Ambassador Gallery, New York, the Fine Art Museum of Long Island, Martin Lawrence Gallery, Chicago, Roberts Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona, Art One Gallery, Los Angeles, John Szoke Graphics, New York, and Gallerie I.D., Geneva Switzerland.