Linn Meyers (born March 17, 1968) is an American, Washington, D.C.–based artist. Her work has been exhibited in the United States and abroad. She is known for her hand-drawn lines and tracings for site-specific installations.
Early life and travels
Meyers was born in Washington, D.C., where she lived until she was 17, at which time she moved to Paris, France. In 1986 she moved back to the U.S. to attend The
Cooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...
in New York City, where she graduated in 1990 with a BFA. In 1991 Meyers moved to Oakland, California, to pursue an MFA at The
California College of the Arts in Oakland California (now located in San Francisco.) After completing her master's degree (1993), Meyers returned to New York City. In 1997 she spent several months living and working in New Haven, Connecticut, before relocating to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she lived for 4 years. Meyers returned to her native Washington, D.C in 2002.
Work
Meyers uses repetitive applications of line and color to draw on a variety of surfaces including paper, vellum, mylar, and gallery walls. "Her drawings tend to grow from themselves, each successive line determining the next." Each piece begins with a single mark – a line that traces a pre-determined framework of circles, or a simple singular gesture. This first stroke defines the direction in which the entire image will evolve – each line a direct response to the mark made just before. These marks amass to create an image, which is both still and moving, ordered and chaotic, both pointing toward perfection and also wholly imperfect.
Meyers' works "function like a map of sorts, charting time and space." At the core of the work is the artist's own relationship to time: learning how to move back and forth between natural time, measured time, and subjective time. Meyers has said, “my works are records of a defined period of time, and in that particular way they are not abstract. They are a form of realism and narrative.” “Indeed Meyers’ work does not erase the artist’s hand; by contrast it is the most direct result of her body movements in a given time period and thereby is a trace of that very personal experience.”
Installation
Meyers has been making large, site-specific wall drawings in museums and galleries since 2000.
These projects require a great deal of endurance and involve drawing in the space over the course of days, sometimes weeks, accumulating lines into dense and intricate compositions. This scale allows Meyers to respond to architectural spaces and magnifies the wholly committed performativity of her process. On Meyers' exhibition for The
Hammer Museum
The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur- ...
, Senior Curator Anne Ellegood wrote, “the sense of being present while viewing the work is also amplified at this larger scale, allowing viewers to experience the work not just visually but also physically. To see a wall drawing is to be surrounded by it and to feel oneself to be part of the work.” Many of Meyers’ wall drawings are created with an awareness of their ultimate impermanence.
As the 2018 halley k. harrisburg ’90 and Michael Rosenfeld Artist-in-Residence at
Bowdoin College Museum of Art
The Bowdoin College Museum of Art is an art museum located in Brunswick, Maine. Included on the National Register of Historic Places, the museum is located in a building on the campus of Bowdoin College designed by the architectural firm McKim, Me ...
, Linn Meyers' newest site-specific installation is titled "Let’s Get Lost." In collaboration with an interactive sound installation, "Listening Glass," by Rebecca Bray, James Bigbee Garver, and Josh Knowles, the exhibition will open on September 27, 2018 and remain on view until September 29, 2019. “Her drawn piece will take cues from Listening Glass, using the sound project to inform the composition of her drawing, thus turning sound into drawn gesture.”
Exhibitions
Meyers has exhibited in venues that include the
Hammer Museum
The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur- ...
, Los Angeles; the
Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; the
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...
, Washington D.C.; the
Frick Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; the
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art, Japan; the
Mattress Factory
The Mattress Factory is a contemporary art museum located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was a pioneer of site-specific installation art and features permanent installations by artists Yayoi Kusama, James Turrell, and Greer Lankton. The museum' ...
, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; The
Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University.
Overview
The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...
, Washington, D.C.; the
National Museum of Women in the Arts
The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since openin ...
, Washington, D.C., The Weatherspoon Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina; Paris Concret, Paris, France; the
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C, The
Columbus Museum of Art, and the
Bowdoin College Museum of Art
The Bowdoin College Museum of Art is an art museum located in Brunswick, Maine. Included on the National Register of Historic Places, the museum is located in a building on the campus of Bowdoin College designed by the architectural firm McKim, Me ...
.
Awards
Meyers has received numerous awards, including a Pollock Krasner Award, a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, A Santo Foundation Individual Artist Award, and four DC Commission on the Arts Fellowships. She has been Artist in Residence at The
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the
San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, The Millay Colony, The
Tamarind Institute
Tamarind Institute is a lithography workshop created in 1970 as a division of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM, United States. It began as Tamarind Lithography Workshop, a California non-profit corporation founded by June Wayne on T ...
, The Bemis Institute, the
Virginia Center for the Creative Arts
The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) is a residential artist community in Amherst, Virginia, USA. Since 1971, VCCA has offered residencies of varying lengths with flexible scheduling for international artists, writers, and composers at ...
, and The
Bowdowin College Museum of Art.
Videos
linn meyers in conversation with Jonathan Frederick Walz, director of curatorial affairs and curator of American art, The Columbus Museum at the National Gallery of ArtBowdoin College Museum of ArtHirshorn Museum and Sculpture GardenHammer Projects
Phillips Collection
San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art
Bibliography
Art In Culture, "혼돈과 질서의 시간" by 김재석, May 14, 2019JoongAng Sunday, "점과 선으로 표현한 우주…‘바람의 결’을 그리다" by 정현모, April 13, 2019Artsy, "These Women Artists are Transforming Gallery Walls with Incredible Murals" by Alina Cohen, February 29, 2019Smithsonian Magazine, "Museum Visitors Can Play This Wall Art Like an Instrument" by Jackie Mansky, December 19, 2018
linn meyers: works 2004-2018, Texts by Anne Collins Goodyear, Jonathan Frederick Walz, Co-published with The Columbus Museum, Jason HaamInterior Design, "The Hirshhorn’s Famously Round Building is Shaping its Resurgence" by Laura Fisher Kaiser, November 6, 2018* Modern Luxury, “Art & Soul”, by Alice Cisternino, December 2017
BBC News, "The Art Made to be Destroyed," September 28, 2017The Washington Post LIVE Facebook Interview with Philip Kennicott, August 11, 2017* The Washington Post, “Women Now”, by Mark Jenkins, March 24, 2017
Hyperallergic, "A Visual Artist Creates Lyrical, Linear Poetry," by Seph Rodney, October 20, 2016*
ttp://www.bmoreart.com/2016/05/a-circle-of-lines-fills-the-hirshhorn.html BmoreArt, "A Circle of Lines Fills the Hirshhorn " by Brendan Smith, May 25, 2016Smithsonian Mag,"The Mesmerizing Results When a Museum Asks an Artist to Draw Over Its Walls, Anne Glusker, May 24, 2016The Washington Times, "Hirshhorn unveils a wall of Meyers artwork" by John Anderson, May 15, 2016The Modern Art Notes Podcast, "No. 240, Joel Shapiro, Linn Meyers" by Tyler Green, May 2016Artnet.com, "10 Upcoming Shows By Groundbreaking Female Artists" by Cait Munro, March 8, 2016Washington CityPaper, "360-Degree Wall Drawing by D.C. Artist Linn Meyers" by Kriston Capps, February 11, 2016* Intersections @5, published by The Phillips Collection, 2015
* The Washington Post, "From the Everyday to the Fantastical" by Mark Jenkins, May 29, 2015
* The Intuitionists (catalogue) published by The Drawing Center, NYC, 2015
Arkansas Times, "12th National Drawing Invitational" by Leslie Newell Peacock, July 15, 2014* Delmarva Now, "'Blue Study' Highlights 'the beauty of imperfection'" by Ursula Erhardt, April 26, 2014
* The Talbot Spy, "Arts Snapshot: The Lines of Linn Meyers" by Dave Wheelan, March 2014
* The Wall Street Journal, "Narrow, and Very Wide Range" by Peter Plagens, August 31, 2013
* NYC Culture / Style, "Rhapsody: Elena del Rivero & Linn Meyers Art Exhibition" by Miguel Dominguez, August 16, 2013
Crippen, "Interview with Linn Meyers, Artist" by Susie Crippen, 2013* The Wall Street Journal, "Narrow, and Very Wide, Range" by Peter Plagens, August 31, 2013
* Linn Meyers, Wall Drawings 2007–2011, "Every Now and Again" essay by Anne Ellegood, published by G Fine Art, 2012
ArtForum.com, Linn Meyers, The Hammer Museum, by Annie Buckley, September 9, 2011* Yearbook 2011–2012, "The Hammer Yearbook" by Harrell Fletcher and Adam Moser, published by The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, pgs 50, 180, 181, 2012
* The Washington Post, "Linn Meyers at G Fine Art" by Kriston Capps, March 11, 2011
DCist.com, "Linn Meyers @ The Phillips Collection" by Pat Padua, July 30, 2010Art Babble, "Hammer Projects: Linn Meyers" 2010 February 20, 2009
* Artweek, "The Space Between at SJICA" by Frank Cebulski, June 1, 2008
* Art in America, "To A Different Drum" by J.W. Mahoney, May 1, 2008
* The Washington Post, "A Pervasive Thought of Line" December 9, 2007
* The Baltimore Sun, "Drawing Values Meticulous Mark-Making" by Glenn McNatt, January 27, 2007
* Baltimore City Paper, "Interval Affairs" by Deborah McLead, January 24, 2007
* Art on Paper, "New Prints Review" November 1, 2006
* ArtNet.com, "Capital Roundup" by Sydney Lawrence, November 29, 2005
* The Washington Post, "A Bit of the Ocean..." by Jessica Dawson, November 19, 2005
* ArtForum, "Linn Meyers at G Fine Art" by Nord Wennerstrom, November 7, 2005
* Art on Paper, "Linn Meyers: Everything Matters" by Roberta Fallon, June 8, 2005
* ArtCritical.com, "Linn Meyers: Embracing the Unplanned Imperfect" by Vicky Perry, 2005
* Provincetown Magazine, "Portrait of an Artist: Linn Meyers" by B. Thomas, July 24, 2003
* ArtNet.com, "Dotty" by N.F. Karlins, June 1, 2003
* Washington City Paper, "Linn Meyers" by Louis Jacobson, May 16, 2003
* The Washington Post, "Compulsively Quirky" by Jessica Dawson, May 15, 2003
* Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Meditative Markings" by Mary Thomas, March 15, 2003
* Art In America, "Linn Meyers at George Billis – New York" by Matthew Guy Nichols, February 1, 2003
* The Philadelphia Inquirer, "Linn Meyers at Gallery Joe" by Edward J. Sozanski, November 29, 2002
* New York Arts, "Linn Meyers at George Billis Gallery" by Deborah Frizzell, June 1, 2002
* Washington City Paper, "87,561 Strokes and Other Works" by Louis Jacobson, September 21, 2001
* The New York Times, "Landscapes of Mind and Nature" by Helen A. Harrison, February 2, 1997
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meyers, Linn
1968 births
Living people
20th-century American women artists
21st-century American women artists
Artists from Washington, D.C.
California College of the Arts alumni
Cooper Union alumni