Muted, Spare Images of the Prairies

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Linda Lindemann, "More Snow Coming - Ardrossan," nd

oil on canvas, 20” x 60”

If you grew up on the Prairies, Linda Lindemann’s landscapes may evoke a nostalgic ache. Their spareness, of course, with pictorial space occupied by singular or scattered objects – a barn, hay bales, even the occasional grain elevator – speaks to the land’s spacious character.

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Linda Lindemann istallation, 2016

at Peter Robertson Gallery

But more than that, Lindemann’s muted colours, their grey undertones a nod to the low light of dusk and dawn, and perhaps even to the landscapes of her Dutch ancestry, batten a deeper quietude. There’s no hint of wind, or roads or tangled grasses, as in More Snow Coming –  Ardrossan, just an oblong outbuilding deposited into muted fields. Like Lawren Harris, who Lindemann cites as an influence, she reduces form to its essentials, removing any distractions. “It’s a real intuitive feeling, a gut impulse to place things how I do,” she says. “I’m always striving for simplicity.” Lindemann, who came to Canada with her parents at age four and grew up on a farm in central Alberta, is self-taught. She has always drawn and painted, but it was only with the birth of her eldest daughter, now a teenager, that she decided to try earning a living from her art. She is represented by the Elevation Gallery in Canmore, Alta., and Edmonton’s Peter Robertson Gallery, where her work is featured as part of a holiday group show that runs Dec. 8 to Dec. 23.

Linda Lindemann, "Birchwood Forrest - red hen farm," 2016

Linda Lindemann, "Late Season Ski Trip - Jasper," 2016

Some of Lindemann's newest paintings show mountain terrain, but she also continues to paint the farmland around her home near Sherwood Park, where she and her husband moved in 2014 after two decades in Edmonton. They call their 40 acres the Red Hen Farm – and do, indeed, have many red hens. “They lay beautiful brown eggs that we give to our friends," she says.