Linda Gibbs

Linda Gibbs completed a Diploma of Fine Art [Painting Major] at the National Art School, Sydney in 1992. She also studied Medieval Tempera Painting at Melbourne University. For the past two decades Gibbs has participated in various solo and group exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney. She has worked as a Painting and Drawing Tutor, a Visual Art Events Producer and a Gallery Director. Linda Gibbs' Australian landscape paintings are part of numerous important private collections throughout Australia.

"The only path to salvation is through immersing oneself in nature." John Muir (1853)

Linda Gibbs' landscapes evoke a dreaminess of idealized nature. Yet, it is not a dream. Working in the en plein air tradition. Gibbs looks deeply into the real landscapes that surround us and transforms them, back in the studio, into a beauty that draws us in. These are paintings to be gazed at and entered into. To spend time with.

Her work is centered around South Gippsland in Victoria. Here, weather and seasons are major factors: glowing summers; darkly green winters; muted blue evenings; sea mists, fogs and rain. Gibbs explores these many atmospheres through her restricted palette, haunted by the vigour of Turner and the stillness of Morandi.

Inspired by nineteenth century naturalist, John Muir, Gibbs feels most complete within her unpeopled landscapes: still and at one with the elements.

Muir said: "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike." This, to me, is what Linda Gibbs' landscapes gift to us.

Philippa Burne 2010