Robert Linsley

artwork

Robert Linsley (1952-2017) was a highly respected Canadian artist, writer and educator.

Originally born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Linsley moved to Vancouver, where he studied at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University, receiving a BFA degree in 1982 and a MFA degree in 1988.

An exceptional painter, critic and theorist, he was an instructor at Emily Carr University in Vancouver, B.C.; and later moved to Kitchener, Ontario to teach at the University of Waterloo in 2002.

His watercolours have a beautiful luminosity, made by overlaying transparent stains. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions in Dusseldorf, Berlin, Vancouver and Toronto; and group exhibitions in Vancouver, Portland, Los Angeles, New York and Rome. His works are in the collections of the Vancouver Art Gallery, the City of Vancouver, Simon Fraser University, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia, Edmonton Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Alberta; as well as numerous private collections in Hong Kong, Germany, the USA and Canada. In 2011, a survey of his work was mounted by the Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery with a catalogue including essays by art historian, Richard Shiff and German critic, Jan Verwoert.

His book, Beyond Resemblance: Abstract Art in the Age of Global Conceptualism was published in 2017 by Reaktion Books; and he produced an artist book, Epigraph from an Unwritten Book with legendary publisher, Yves Gevaert in 1997. He was also a valued contributor to Canadian Art Magazine.