ML - Aspen Peak

2015 - Issue 1 - Summer

Aspen Peak - Niche Media - Aspen living at its peak

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Girvin places feathers and acrylic paint directly onto a scanner to produce fractured images of motion and flux. difficult than the lenticular images," she says. "I often hear from critics and dealers that [my new work] is extremely unusual and fairly profound in its use of tech- nology to convey my emotions." W hile t ra nsit ion a nd movement have a lways been a preva lent t heme in her work, t he cur rent ser ies, a nd t he new a r t ist t hat has emerged, didn't come about unt il she a nd her husba nd, a rchitect Bill L ipsey, st a r ted to spend more t ime in Mexico. They recent ly completed building a house in Sa n Mig uel de A llende a nd pla n to spend four to f ive mont hs t here each yea r. The rest of t he yea r t hey'll spend in t heir Aspen home nea r t he base of Smuggler Mount a in. "I feel closer to life and closer to death down there," she says of Mexico. "[I feel] the immediate quality, the palpable quality, and the heart down there." That syn- chronicity with the cycle of life has allowed her to peaceably work with a medium as ostensibly gro- tesque as bird carcasses. "I don't think I'm talking about death; I'm talking about life," she says, pointing to a specifically broad-stroked line next to a small bird. "These lines are tran- sition lines. Every moment is loaded. I'm trying to get all that on a two-dimensional plane. I'm trying to push the boundaries of photography." According to one of her longtime collectors, she's succeeding. "Linda is crossing boundaries and provoking," says Ann Korijn, a Holland-based artist and collector. Korijn and her husband first found Girvin's work while vacationing in Aspen. Their first purchase was from her lenticular series. They've continued to watch her work evolve, and, as their friendship has grown, says Korijn, so has Girvin's work. "We own quite a bit of art, and we see people who are simply produc- ing something that will sell," she says. "Linda does something [where] she doesn't know where it's going, but it's professional." It can actually be hard to draw the gaze away, she adds. "It's confronta- tional. There's something so harsh and then so beautiful with all of those colors. You don't want to think [about] what she did to get there, and [yet] it is absolutely beautiful." In fact, Girvin doesn't want anyone to think about what she did to get there. She says that if viewers try to understand it in a logical way, they'll just be frus- trated. She's taking it a step further and leaving the audience with as little information as possible. Her premiere of these works, called "Portraits," is on dis- play at the Wyly Arts Center, in Basalt, through July 4, and the only piece of information she's giving viewers is a number—no titles, no mediums, no dates. "It's not necessary to understanding the image," she says. Girvin says she is finally ready for "Presence With Absence" to go pub- lic. Though, in a sense it already has—"Presence" is the re-emerging artist's latest series, from which the 10 images for "Portraits" were pulled. The works had previously only been seen by private collectors visiting her Aspen studio; now, much like the second phase of Girvin's career, they're poised for f light. AP "I feel closer to life and closer to death down in Mexico. I feel the immediate quality, the palpable quality, and the heart down there. But, with my art, I don't think I'm talking about death; I'm talking about life." —Linda Girvin ASPENPEAK-MAGAZINE.COM 121

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