Joan Linder
Puffs + Lotion #1, 2021
Watercolor and ink on paper
Courtesy the Artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery

Joan Linder’s working methods center on the meticulous observation of resonant quotidian objects, which she records with the respectful attention of a documentarian and a mind that registers conceptual ironies. (She began her career with depictions, or copies, of photocopiers.) By paying close attention to her subject matter she establishes a visible rapport that challenges the idea that such objects are ordinary and disposable. Speaking in 2020 about a series of artworks that featured watercolor paintings of both egg cartons and tissue boxes like the ones on view here, she described the emotions she assigned to them: “I was thinking a lot about springtime and death. The egg cartons were women’s work, nourishment, menopause and empty vessels, and the tissue boxes were allergies and sadness and mourning a loss.”
(DKS)

Cited:
Brown, Becky, “Everything Looks Distorted Already: Joan Linder Interviewed by Becky Brown,” Cornelia, May 2020, corneliamagazine.com