Linda Ganjian generally thinks of herself as a sculptor but with an active drawing practice. For this residency, when bringing a 5×7 foot sculpture isn’t feasible, she is focusing exclusively on drawings, using photos of a large work in her studio at home (seen above on the left) as reference and inspiration.
The sculpture is inspired by container ships and all the things they transport. It’s filled with individual plaster forms. Each one is cast from the plastic packaging that comes with everyday household objects. “All the glorious stuff we throw in our recycling bin!” she explains.
The drawings that Linda has been working on at Saltonstall allow her to play with geometry, symmetry, and forms taken directly from the larger sculpture. “There’s something utopian and fantastical about it,” she says about the whole body of work. “I’m also making a point about the excess in our lives — how so much of this stuff comes across the ocean. We don’t even think about it.”
Like another recent body of work — Glimpses from a Queens Commute — Linda reinterprets each drawing as a quilt tile. “I like the idea of creating something beautiful out of things that are often seen as an eyesore,” she says.