Linda Kessler is an American contemporary artist working in the mediums of painting, photography and mixed media.  She is based in New York and Greece. 

 

She was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1954. She showed an aptitude for art as a child having her first exhibition at 11 years of age. She earned a graduate degree in mental health counseling from Northeastern University, and an MFA in painting from Pratt Institute. While at Pratt her painting departed from the classical art education she received at the Art Students League and evolved from figurative brush painting to layered abstractions, deconstructing and reconstructing the surface using unconventional materials, such as tar and marble dust.  Creating non-objective work compelled her to reveal her subconscious with a physical disarmament. Releasing muscular armor by slamming, ripping, gouging, drilling, scraping, and puncturing, adding and removing layer upon layer, she reveals the form at its crux, uniting the balancing of polarities.  Antoni Tàpies, Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, Joan Mitchell, and Wilhelm Reich informed her work, which she continues.

 

A self-taught photographer Linda Kessler began experimenting with the camera when she lived in Brazil for two years from 1990-1992.  She realized the camera responded to her need to document the country and it's people faster than the brush.  During this time she met Eli Reed, Magnum Photos who, upon seeing her work, encouraged her to pursue documentary photography.  

 

Linda Kessler has exhibited widely across the United States and Europe, with recent exhibitions at the Patmion Cultural Center, the Italian Institute of Education, Blank Wall Gallery, in Greece, and Villa de Créateurs, Maison de l'Europe, Paris.  Ms. Kessler is the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Grant and other multiple honors and awards for her work. She has lived in seven countries, continues to travel, document her travels, and maintains a studio practice in Greece.

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Complete Biography