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Press, 23 November 1988, Page 24

A single thought crossed Linda James’ mind when she learnt that she had been awarded the $20,000 1989 Olivia Spencer-Bower Foundation Award, reports Christopher Moore. “An end to having to sew foldaway sunhats,” the Christchurch artist says. The sunhats had augmented her income from painting. The

award will now allow her to concentrate totally on her art for one year — “constantly and without having to worry about other things.” Linda James graduated from the University of Canterbury’s School of Fine Arts in 1983 with an honours painting diploma. Using acrylics and collage she develops large-scale works from a

studio at The Mill in Addington. “I think about ideas rather than the painting — and Christchurch is a good place for an artist to work in. People here are not swept away with the tide of consumerism. There are no celebrity cults,” she says. Drawing on a variety of sources, she develops her ideas in paint and sculptural forms.

A recent exhibition at the CSA Gallery drew on the flow and temperament of rivers while a large work currently in the McDougall Annex at the Arts Centre shows expressionistic quality and interplay of form and texture. Pictured above, Linda James is dwarfed by Dancing Women IV.