“An artist’s evolution rarely proceeds in a straight line. Starting out, my principal focus was portraiture as I was strongly influenced by the German artists of the 1920’s. But over the years I’ve found myself drawn to the light and movement of the land and sea and the mystery and metaphor of abstraction. But most of all, by the simplicity and tranquility of still life. The term derives from stilleven, the word used by the great Dutch masters of the sixteenth-century who, as one historian put it, “lavished on cucumbers and cauliflower the attention they once applied to the Son of God.” We’ve been deriving inspiration, even consolation, from still lifes ever since. Not just from cucumbers and cauliflower but from all sorts of inanimate objects arranged in vases, baskets, bottles, jugs, urns, sometimes just an old milk pail. What is it about such pictures? For me, it’s their very stillness — a quality that’s timeless, universal, and mutes the noise that surrounds us. For me, such stillness is best captured in the form of branches or flowers I arrange in vessels, which I often set atop a pedestal, testament to how much I treasure the calm they afford.”
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Linda Reville Eisenberg grew up on City Island, a nautical community in the Bronx. She currently lives and works in Manhattan and Sag Harbor, New York. She has studied at the Art Students League in New York City and the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been featured in various East End galleries and The Church in Sag Harbor. She was awarded top honors for her portrait titled “Lee” at Guild Hall’s 83rd Artist-Member Exhibition, Spring 2021. The exhibition was judged by Gagosian curator and director, Antwaun Sargent.
“Still,” a solo exhibition of selected still lifes, will be presented at Guild Hall, 158 Main St., East Hampton, NY. The show runs from November 16, 2024 through January 6, 2025. For more information.
