Bio
Linda Eva Kourkoulis is an artist, educator, and researcher, born in New York City. She earned a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and EdD. from Teachers College, Columbia University, studied at the Art Students League, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. Linda is faculty and the Curriculum Coordinator for the Art Education Department at the School of Visual Arts. Her work has been exhibited by numerous galleries and included in collections in New York, Athens, Amsterdam, and Mexico City. Linda lives and maintains her printmaking practice in New York.
Artist Statement
I create imagery to convey the sensibility of the female body being powerful, resilient, purposeful, and graceful in dialogue with the enduring reference to women’s bodies across cultures as containers or vessels The Greek word thalassa, not only signifies but also describes the sound the sea makes, like tracing the rhythm of the breath. In a similar sense, my work is about composing abstractions that signify and describe form, as inhabited, internalized, and in constant flux. Women generally manifest the environment that is considered home and curate a space to be physically and emotionally safe. Through different mediums, I explore physical and psychical forms of enclosure. My interest began with marine creatures’ ability to adapt under extreme conditions and maintain equilibrium. I study the natural containers made by marine creatures such as shells: enclosures made to house, protect, be occupied and abandoned by fate or design, and integrate these into compositions that center the female body as an instrument of knowing.
The prints bring line, form, and color into play. I combine printing techniques and layer imagery arranged to interact. Shells appear suspended like constellations that delineate the boundaries of forms in space. “The Carrying” is in part, a reference to Ada Limon's poem which addresses conception, loss, and grief. The cyclamen, known for surviving difficult conditions, grace the feet of the female figure lightly cradling a child. “The Bone Gatherer” remembers women across cultures and time who carry out the rituals for preparation, mourning and honoring the dead. The poppies emblazoned cadmium red with inkish blue-black details, symbolize fertility, life, death, and remembrance.
I mold “living vessels” from clay, to cast using a variety of materials and combinations such as paper pulp, resin, wax, and ground shells. These creatures are assembled upon artifact-like fragments to imply a continuum of disintegration and renewal. Stitching paper, overlapping folds, leaving ragged edges, and constraining the color palette, are imagined adaptations of sea creatures and other life forms applying modifications for coexistence and survival. I feel that I am printing in some manner, as if creating stamps of 3-d forms; perhaps because of the repetition of shapes, using many small components to comprise a whole. Ritual is repetition within some sort of matrix that seeks understanding amid change and the unknown. I believe ritual serves as a guide, an opening for exploration, and a place holder for reflection. Botanist and writer, Robin Wall Kimmerer emphasizes how the stories we choose to mold our behaviors have adaptive consequences on future generations. It is in this spirit that I continue my artistic research, seeking to create meaningful imagery of women as carriers of physical and spiritual life.
The prints bring line, form, and color into play. I combine printing techniques and layer imagery arranged to interact. Shells appear suspended like constellations that delineate the boundaries of forms in space. “The Carrying” is in part, a reference to Ada Limon's poem which addresses conception, loss, and grief. The cyclamen, known for surviving difficult conditions, grace the feet of the female figure lightly cradling a child. “The Bone Gatherer” remembers women across cultures and time who carry out the rituals for preparation, mourning and honoring the dead. The poppies emblazoned cadmium red with inkish blue-black details, symbolize fertility, life, death, and remembrance.
I mold “living vessels” from clay, to cast using a variety of materials and combinations such as paper pulp, resin, wax, and ground shells. These creatures are assembled upon artifact-like fragments to imply a continuum of disintegration and renewal. Stitching paper, overlapping folds, leaving ragged edges, and constraining the color palette, are imagined adaptations of sea creatures and other life forms applying modifications for coexistence and survival. I feel that I am printing in some manner, as if creating stamps of 3-d forms; perhaps because of the repetition of shapes, using many small components to comprise a whole. Ritual is repetition within some sort of matrix that seeks understanding amid change and the unknown. I believe ritual serves as a guide, an opening for exploration, and a place holder for reflection. Botanist and writer, Robin Wall Kimmerer emphasizes how the stories we choose to mold our behaviors have adaptive consequences on future generations. It is in this spirit that I continue my artistic research, seeking to create meaningful imagery of women as carriers of physical and spiritual life.
Exhibitions
2026 Drift, BAU Gallery, Beacon, NY
The Power of Love, Silvermine Galleries, New Canaan, CT
2025 Annual Community Art Benefit, KinoSaito, Verplanck, NY
New Contemporaries Exhibition, dodomu gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Color Me...Exhibit, Silvermine Galleries, New Canaan, CT
Small Works Show: Microcosm, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY
2024 Community Art Benefit, KinoSaito, Verplanck, NY
PaperWorks Show: No Limits, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY
Every Picture Tells a Story, Silvermine Gallery, New Canaan, CT
Make Way Exhibition, Curated by the Women Supporting Women Club, SVA West Library, New York, NY
Enduring: Small Works Show, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY
2023 Pushing the Envelope, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY
Sixty Square Inches XX, Purdue Galleries, Purdue University, IN
Small Works: Personal Search, juried exhibit, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY
2022 New Members Exhibition, Silvermine Gallery, 1037 Silvermine Rd, New Canaan, CT
Guild Summer Salon, Silvermine Gallery, New Canaan, CT
2021 She is Rising, Art Benefit by LiveGirl, Carriage Barn Arts Center, New Canaan, CT
Annual Members Show, Carriage Barn Arts Center, New Canaan, CT
Guild Summer Salon, Silvermine Gallery, 1037 Silvermine Rd, New Canaan, CT
2020 Faculty Biennial 2020, Macy Gallery, Teachers College, New York, NY
2019 Friends of Pleiades Annual Invitational Show, Pleiades Gallery, New York, NY
Coming Home: Alumni Exhibition, juried exhibition, Macy Gallery, New York, NY
Fluid Perimeters: Myers Art Prizes, juror: Jennifer Mock, Macy Gallery, Teachers College, New York
2018 Small Works Show, Invitational Exhibition, Pleiades Gallery, New York, NY
2014 Both Sides Now, Faculty Exhibition, Macy Gallery, Teachers College, New York
2013 Equilibrium, Myers Art Prize Exhibition, Macy Gallery, Teachers College, NY
2012 Size Matters, NRCA Annual Juried Exhibition, Rotunda Gallery, New Rochelle, NY
2011 Subtitled, curated by Maurizio Pellegrin, 251 E. 110th Street, New York, NY
2010 Media Loft +, ArtsFest 2010, Media Loft Gallery, New Rochelle, NY
Studio Practices, juried exhibition curated by G. Sullivan, Macy Gallery, NY
2009 Myers Art Prize Exhibition, Macy Gallery, Teachers College, New York
2008 Myers Art Prize Exhibition, Macy Gallery, Teachers College, New York
2007 Ceramics, Printmaking and Photography Exhibition, Macy Gallery, NY
2006 Nature’s Motion, Kirkland Art Center, Clinton, NY
Westchester Biennial 2006, Castle Gallery, New Rochelle, NY
2005 Printing Show: Lithography & Silkscreen, Macy Gallery, Teachers College
Macy 55, Macy Gallery, Teachers College curated by Maurizio Pellegrin
2004 Dimokritos Gallery, Athens Greece*
2003 Group Exhibition, Dimokritos Gallery, Athens, Greece
2002 Dimokritos Gallery, Athens Greece*
2000 Group Exhibition, Ernest Schiller Gallery, Salamina, Greece
1999-2000 Theognis Gallery, Megara, Bougainvillia Gallery, Mykonos, Matoyiannia Center, Mykonos,
Pierides Gallery, Athens*; Lembesi Exhibition Hall, Salamina; Kalikourthi Gallery, Aegina, Greece;
exhibitions sponsored by the Greek Ministry of Culture: curated by M. Eleftheriou
1998 Ernest Schiller Gallery, Salamina, Greece*
Bougainvillia Gallery, Mykonos, Greece
1994 El Rio Del Tiempo mural, Guadalajara Book Fair, Mexico
Day of the Dead, group show, Carole LaRoche Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
*denotes solo/two person exhibitions
Awards
Myers Fund Art Prize, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY: 2008, 2009, 2013, 2018