Press Release – Lyghtesome Gallery, Antigonish, N.S.

"THE INNER EYE”
Annual Exhibit of Recent Work by LINDA JOHNS
June 3 - 29, 2002
Lyghtesome Gallery
Antigonish, Nova Scotia

Every June for the past 27 years, Lyghtesome Gallery has featured a month long exhibit of recent work by Antigonish artist Linda Johns. Opening on Monday, June 3rd, this year’s show is entitled “The Inner Eye” and features ten acrylic paintings on paper and a group of three pen and ink brush drawings on cork and a two-part acrylic painting on paper all individually set into “frames” handcarved by the artist. These unusual works cross boundaries between painting and sculpture intensifying the archetypal imagery so characteristic of this visionary artist.
Linda Johns writes about the exhibit:
“Our outer eye sees events and circumstances amid the fleeting seasons of nature. All is ever changing, always in flux. But our inner eye sees beyond these manifestations in time, to the unchanging realities of eternity.”
“For me, the challenge is to use familiar images from our natural world in metaphorical ways in order to reveal this hidden world, the one seen by our inner eye.”
Linda Johns, a resident of James River. is a nationally known artist, writer and naturalist whose unique life and artwork have been featured in recent years on both CBC and Discovery Channel documentaries. A versatile and prolific artist, Johns produces acrylic paintings on canvas and on paper, linocut prints, black and white ink pen and brush drawings, and carvings in wood, stone, clay and bone. Her artwork can be found in the collections of the Nova Scotia Art Bank, St. Francis Xavier Univ. and the Angus L. MacDonald Library, PanCanadian Petroleum, N.S. Government Caucus, Owens Art Gallery, Mt. Allison Univ., Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and Acadia University, as well as numerous private collections in Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain. She writes about the natural world and her experiences with birds and other wildlife and has had several books published by Nimbus Publishing, Halifax, McLelland and Stewart, Toronto and the Sierra Club, California.“The Inner Eye” is on exhibit until June 29th and will be followed by the annual Antigonish Area Artist exhibit at Lyghtesome Gallery in July.