Lina Bryans

Lina Bryans often paints one area or one person several times while the idea behind the painting, or the association of the artist with the subject is explored. The artist’s work gives a sense of freedom-it ranges through different styles, from the fairly formal, or realistic to the personal and abstracted. Paintings radiate a sense of energy, or urgency, and succeed or fail under the immediacy of their execution.

Many of the portraits painted by the artist are of literary figures – the challenging chic of the writer and actress Jean Campbell, author of the novel The Babe is Wise; Nina Christesen, with a still life on a shelf behind her and a painting of the still life behind that; the dashing brush work and diagonals of colour and line of the tilted figure of Alan Marshall, are all animated by being painted off centre, with the colours deployed to give a twisting movement to the pose.

The variety of Lina Bryans’ wide interests precludes attribution of direct influence. This variety is important to look at, through a few instances, in order to gain some understanding of the social and artistic climate of which she is a part.

Excerpt from exhibition catalogue introduction
By Jennifer Phipps