LINDA GEARY

“As an artist, it’s all about permission to follow an idea, to be okay with not knowing the final outcome, to let the work keep changing. If a work fails it still leads to the next step. I never know how a painting will get resolved. Notebooks provide the space for a less cautious, more direct, spontaneous approach.”

Linda Geary lives in Oakland and is chair of the painting/drawing program at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Her abstract paintings and collages explore the relationships between color, space, and scale. She is also passionate about bringing artists together for conversations around art, and in 2013 cofounded the Painting Expanded Symposium, an engaging series of discussions about contemporary painting. In 2011, Geary spent a year visiting 100 artists in their studios; the resulting conversations on art, life, and color are collected in her recent book, Studio Visit, Geary’s notebooks for Plumb are a natural extension of these collaborations. Says Geary, “Having conversations about art is almost as fun as painting. A big part of my practice is talking to other artists. Their feedback keeps me on my toes and eventually a breakthrough happens.” Geary has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Italy, and she is the recipient of an Elizabeth Foundation Grant, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and residencies at Omi International Arts Center and the Millay Colony for the Arts.

Plumb Notebooks

Solo exhibitions

  • Steven Wolf Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA
  • Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA
  • 2nd Floor Projects, San Francisco, CA
  • Bau Institute, Otranto, Italy

Group exhibitions

  • Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
  • Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA
  • Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
  • Mills College, Oakland, CA
  • The Oakland Museum
  • San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art
  • Eli Ridgway Gallery, San Francisco, CA
  • Pulliam Gallery, Portland, OR
  • Rose Burlingham Projects, New York, NY