Artist’s Statement

My goal is to bring a new approach to each subject. Although most of my pieces include realistic elements, I try to introduce abstract aspects either in composition or content to each piece. Working in acrylic on a clay board surface using a subtractive scratching technique, I am striving for a three-dimensional look and feel. I genuinely appreciate the fine details and high contrast effects possible with a variety of scratching tools (X-Acto knives, scalpels, fiber glass brushes, steel wool, and tattoo needles). I hope that the textural dimension of my work gives the viewer distinctly different experiences up close and from a distance. I value the various experiences one can have with one piece of art – seeing something new each time you look at it, drawing the viewer to look closer.

Artist Biography

Linda Heath Clark is an artist living in the beautiful Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California. Her art spans realism to abstract.

After obtaining a Bachelor’s Degree in Art with a minor in Biology, Linda’s interest in wildlife and science led to positions illustrating museum exhibits and ultimately to working sixteen years as a scientific illustrator. Her work as an illustrator included detailed animal portraits and insect and plant illustrations printed in environmental and agricultural publications, scientific journals, and Smithsonian Magazine.

Using her distinctive full color scratch technique, Linda creates highly detailed three dimensional forms and textures in both her realistic and abstract pieces. She was awarded Master Scratchboard Artist (MSA) status by the International Society of Scratchboard Artists (ISSA) in 2016, and awarded Signature Membership in American Women Artists (AWA) in 2023. She has won awards at local, regional, national, and international shows. Her “Cactus Bloom” acrylic on clay board was included in North Light Book's AcrylicWorks2: Radical Breakthroughs and her work "Shelter" is included in Artists Magazines's special edition AcrylicWorks 9: The Best of Acrylic. Other highlights include work shown at the Smithsonian Museum and the 2015 Crocker-Kingsley competition.

Linda’s award winning art can be seen at the Fire and Rain Gallery in Folsom, CA and the Placerville Art Gallery in Placerville, CA. Her work is in private collections nationwide.

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