Linda O'Neill

Artist/Educator

Linda O’Neill 2007 Artist Statement

"There is no such thing as effortless mimesis:

It takes work to make paint look like anything at all.”

(James Elkins, What Painting Is)

My painting practice is both meditative and intuitive in conception. I am a representational painter because recognizable subjects and their thematic content provide the means in which I can forge relationships between the physical world, and the less tangible forms of imagination. My studio production consists of both oil on canvas and panel paintings.

The medium of oil paint is such a tantalizing substance. It is so superbly physical and flexible, with transitive states extending from palpably thick, matte, opaque and brushy, to lustrously smooth, transparent and glossy. The temperament of oil paint exudes a libidinous quality, with its responsiveness to touch and capacity to engage and seduce the eye.

The act of painting is an act of focus – a being in the moment of the painting, an experience of thinking in paint, when mind and eye and hand and heart convert to a form of painterly alchemy, a metamorphic union between pigment, light and form.

Linda O'Neill studied at Grant MacEwan College (Fine Art Diploma 1994), the University of Alberta (BFA 1996), and at the University of Guelph (MFA 2000). She has exhibited regularly in solo and group exhibitions since 1990, and her paintings are included in public, corporate and private collections across and in Europe. She has taught visual arts classes for Adult Education in Alberta and Ontario, and recently has worked as an instructor for the School of Fine Art and Music at the University of Guelph. Linda presently resides in Guelph.

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