ARTISTS TALKING

# 1 [10 November 2009]

Recently, I was lucky enough to be faced with the prospect of putting together a show of my new work alongside some retrospective material, at Abbey Walk Gallery in Grimsby. This gave me food for thought, and I eventually curated the show from a selection of the lasr five years work. Here's a piece of writing that came out of that experience:

"Open Pores: an enquiry under the skin of self.

Open Pores is a show which in some way documents the past five years in the life of the maker of the work – each series is intensely personal, whilst at the same time, being a method for the artist of making connections with others, as well as through which to look into oneself.

          In an incessant mindfulness of mortality and life cycle, these pieces are the means through which Linda Ingham examines theories on Being, and what it is to be human. Much of this is very much a display of ‘being oneself’ insomuch as the layers of process and particular concentration employed during the making of the work fulfil an aspect of her self.

          Having studied Heidegger’s theories during 2005 – 2006 (in particular, the piece The Origin of the Work of Art) much of these series stems from her own appropriation of the term ‘work-being’. Both using it as interpreted from the philosopher’s text, that the work itself has a being which opens up something responsive in the viewer, and in a more literal usage, as who she feels she is whilst making the work: her ‘Work-Being’. Perhaps as a result, and despite some of the displayed work having been triggered by significant stages in her own life, Linda would prefer the viewer to look at the work and respond to it in relation to themselves and their own lives.

          When considered as the results of an emerging quest to look into oneself, we find work that speaks of an ever-changing journey of constant beginnings, as each life event subtly or otherwise impacts on whatever follows. Some aspects overtly self-referential, and others much less obviously so.

          Although elements of religion, mythology, literature and philosophy have been drawn upon through which to inform the work and explore the artist’s ideas, these have tended to act as instinctive or connective points of inspiration, connecting to a happening or stage in the artist’s life at that time, and equally as some means through which to develop one’s own life philosophy, rather than a single viewpoint faithfully followed. Linda sees such references as an attempt in part to engage with the rest of the world and understand her self in relation to others - as a tiny speck in the bigger picture - and also as a jumping-off point through which to attempt a degree of small understandings of the nature of the self of humanity and it’s multiple, ever-changing selves.

Omnia mutantis – everything changes . . ."