In 2009 McKelvie completed her Masters of Fine Arts(Hons) at Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design, Auckland.
Linda McKelvie was born in Chicago, Illinois and completed a BSc at the University of Wisconsin as well as an Associate of Applied Science degree in Fashion Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
In 1982 she relocated to Auckland,New Zealand. She completed a diploma of Secondary teaching in 1991 and later trained in Graphic Design at the Auckland University of Technology.
McKelvie has been teaching Design and Art in New Zealand secondary schools since 1992. She has worked as a painter, illustrator and storyboard artist in New Zealand and the United States.
Her work has been included in exhibitions both in Auckland and on Waiheke Island and is included in both public and private collections in the USA and China.
Awards:
Recent Exhibitions:
March 2013 Elements Flametree Gallery, Coatsville
February 2010 Chroma Flametree Gallery, Coatsville
January 2009 Chromaticity Randolph Street Gallery, Auckland
Commissions:
Macau Galaxy Hotel
Work and Influences:
The initial viewing of Linda McKelvie’s paintings is an encounter with overlaid and intersecting veils of beguiling colour which appear to float from a white ground of gesso. The colours intensify and recede. Texture is encapsulated as the properties of the pigment suspended within the medium, and is also created as the medium carrying the pigment solidifies and dries. The organic forms are abstract but may evoke references to objects located in the viewer’s memory.
After this first engagement with the enjoyment of colour and form, there is the possibility of being enticed into searching through the layers to locate the process and procedures, to find what has been layered over and under and why and to question the uncertainties about spatial dynamics present in the imagery. The encounter with the work raises questions about media and sequence. McKelvie uses the words “image and event” (2008) to define her process. The image exists as the layered residues of intuitive decision making. The event may be the process of making the image but could also be understood as the time of the viewer’s contemplation of the image, and any attempt by the viewer to reconstruct the artist’s process in his or her own fantasy.
The work begins with the labor-intensive effort of selecting pigments, within a limited colour range, according to the effect they produce in suspension. Pigments are ground to the desired consistency, determined by the viscosity and pigment density in the liquid medium. The way in which gesso is applied to the canvas to create a field for the paint is carefully considered according to the textural effects it can provide in the finished work. The painting process begins with deliberation, control, and empirical knowledge. This part of the work is mindful and anticipatory. The finished work contains the record of the gesture of the painter, a memory solidified in the media.
| Media: | Painting |
| Region: | Auckland |
| Commissions: | yes |
Education:
Masters of Fine Arts( Hons) Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design Auckland.
Bachelor of Science University of Wisconsin Madison Wisconsin USA
Diploma of Teaching Secondary Auckland College of Education Auckland
Associate of Applied Science (Fashion Design) Fashion Institute of Technology New York.