Linda Kessler is an American artist, from New York City, living in Patmos, Greece. She is an abstract and figurative painter, and documentary and fine art photographer. Linda Kessler became enchanted by painting and photography as a young child growing up in New York City. While education was a challenge for her due to being dyslexic she found art became a refuge of creativity. Her aptitude was well recognized and rewarded with her first exhibited artwork as part of a group show, in New York City, when she was eleven years of age.  Kessler prefers to work with color in her paintings using non-traditional materials with unconventional methods to create her highly-textured abstract paintings. The process of constructing, deconstructing, and reconstructing multiple times by vigorously scraping, drilling, and gouging, facilitates the breaking down of multiple layers, destroying and revealing an ultimate organized chaos.

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After completing her graduated studies in Mental Health Counseling in Boston, in her early 20s, she returned to her love of color and shape and attended a painting class with Miroslav Antic, a Serbian (Yugoslavian) painter in Cambridge. His teaching method opened her eyes to seeing color in a new and exciting way and became a catalyst in her career as a painter. Soon after, she decided to return to New York to study classical drawing and painting voraciously at the atelier of Anton Russev and with instructors David Leffel, Frank Mason and Thomas Fogarty at the renowned Art Students' League.  Painters who influenced her greatly was Ilya Repin and Joaquin Sorolla. At the completion of her studies and upon receiving a prestigious award for one of her portraits at the Art Students' League she  traveled and lived, for several months, in México which began her foundation for a life dedicated to painting, photography and travel. 

 

In her mid 30s she lived for two years in Brazil.  During this time she met well-known Magnum photographer, Eli Reed, who inspired her to pursue her photography. Although Linda Kessler is a self-taught photographer, during her time in Brazil, she became a relentless street photographer documenting life in Brazil.  She consistently returned to the photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson as a reference.

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As a self-taught photographer Linda Kesster prefers to follow the classical manner of traditional photographers with a modern approach toward her black & white images. It is her unwavering curiosity to discover the ‘nitty-gritty’ of daily, ordinary life which is the ‘driving force’ toward her work whether it be in her home environment or her travels. 

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To further her education in painting Linda Kessler attended Pratt Institute for her graduate studies. Her representational work became transformed into a new way of seeing, which involved her emotions as well. Linda Kessler discovered and became influenced by abstract painters Antoni Tapies, Vasudeo S. Gaitonde and Joan Mitchell.  She welcomed a new vision and way of expressing herself.

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In 2000 she accept a position teaching art and photography as an instructor to high school students in a New York City public school.  She taught many students who had never picked up a pencil or brush.  Her inventive and innovative projects, with her non-conformity, led to many of her students winning awards and having work exhibited in public institutions and corporations.

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After fifteen years, Ms. Kessler retired and began to live for extended periods of time overseas. At the same time she received a National Endowment for the Arts grant to curate her exhibition at La Mama Gallery, in New York City, with her "Subway Sleepers" project. Shortly after she began living traveling and living overseas again. In 2017 she lived in Paris for three months and 2018 she lived for six months in Barcelona, exploring Spain, Portugal, Southern France and Morocco.  And, then she discovered Cuba, which she returns to yearly. Her love of traveling she says "is like a child seeing the circus for the first time, with its excitement, fascination and curiosity.

 

 As a New Yorker Linda Kessler is a passionate traveler and has lived in various countries including México, Brazil, Italy, France and Spain.  For the last three years she has chosen to make Patmos her home, where she has a studio.

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Linda Kessler is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, from the U.S., and other prestigious awards for her paintings and photographs. Her work is widely exhibited and owned by many international collectors.

 

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