Joan Linder
Puffs
Watercolor on paper, folded paper
3.75" x 9" x 4.75"
Courtesy of 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