Detail from Florence Duomo & Ark Composition, 2009, oil & china marker on canvas, (four canvases) 87 x 138 in. |
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We don’t include a person’s credit rating in their eulogy, and we don’t remember civilizations by their GDP numbers. Bruce Linn’s recent paintings include images of ships loaded, like arks, with landmark architecture and iconic works of art, fleeing a world of landfills and dumpsters--metaphors for the process of preserving (and destroying) material culture Linn calls "Aesthetic Darwinism," which he sees as a revelation of our values and aspirations. In the current economic climate, the paintings serve to question our definitions of national wealth as well. |
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Landfill (Feeding the Philistines), 2010, oil, graphite & china marker on canvas... | Chrysler Building Ark, 2011, oil & china marker... | ||||
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Ark, 2009, oil & china marker on canvas, 48 x 72 in. |
Bruce Linn also reflects on history, culture, and wealth in his large mural-like history painting, Building America. The painting is composed of nine six-foot-by-six-foot canvases and spans fifty-four feet. It took Linn over four and a half years to create and traces the history of the United States. |
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Detail from Building America, Early-20th Century (Panel 7). Portraits, from left to right:W.E.B. Du Bois, William Faulkner, Eleanor Roosevelt, Earnest Hemmingway. Click here for an overview of BUILDING AMERICA, or click on the thumbnails, below, to see any of the nine six-foot canvases. |
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© 2001-2014 Bruce Linn |