Colletta in her studio at AmFab
The American Fabric Arts Building is proud to be home to many exciting contemporary artists. Linda Colletta is known for her boldly colorful, compelling abstract painting. Not only is she a full-time artists, but she is the artistic director for D2 Interieurs, and recently had a very successful solo show, GEOMETRIK, at the Gallery at Lillian August in Norwalk. If you weren’t able to attend, an extensive selection of Colletta’s original’s can be seen at LindaColletta.com or prints of her work at OneKingsLane.com
What we really appreciate about Linda’s work is the luminosity of the paintings: they have a sense of light that brightens and lifts the space they’re in. The size of the work is a statement in itself – no one can ignore a Linda Colletta painting, as the play of colors so absolutely freed from the rigors of representationally simultaneously captures and calms the eye, allowing the viewer a deeper level of access to the ways the universe can be understood.
Chameleon
From The Artist’s Website
When asked about inspiration, Linda replied, “I am endlessly fascinated by places where man & nature meet...like a telephone line across a skyline at dusk or a tiny patch of grass in the middle of a cement jungle or a fence marking the end of a rolling field. The line against the form is not only a source of beautiful abstraction but also speaks to our futile attempts as humans to contain or control this wild world. It makes me giggle every time. And it reminds me to just let go.”
Linda has described her progression as an artist as a lifelong process of exploration and discovery. We’re happy that some of this process has happened here, in the American Fabrics Building. Artists are so influenced by the space they work in: when you have the ability to shut out the distractions of the world and focus on your process, great things happen.
Orion
From The Artists’ Website
“My studio is about 600 sq ft with 30ft ceilings and two big factory windows that go from floor to ceiling that let in the most inspiring natural light,” Colletta said. “The light is truly why I took the space. The space and the light just compel me to paint, and inspire me on every level.”
Tetrahedron in Green
From the Artist’s Website
Linda created her first installation piece before she was six years old, using a collection of nails, screws, and other hardware bits to impose her vision on the family’s garage wall. Subsequent to that came decades of work as a scenic painter and set designer in the music industry. She was drawn to painting but like many, struggled with questions of creative meaning. This stalled her progress for almost 15 years, and “Then one day it hit me, the “thing” that I wanted to say, the meaning that meant the most to me, that was always there but I was afraid to say it, as if it wasn’t important enough … beauty. I like to create beauty and I’ve come to embrace the belief that this world could never have enough added to it, in fact now, I can’t think of anything more important.”
Interested viewers are welcome to schedule studio visits. To do so, contact Linda Colletta here.