The Ohio Artist Registry (OAR) is an exciting opportunity for artists to share their work, connect with the creative community, and establish an online presence—all on a free, virtual platform! The OAR encourages artists working in all art forms, throughout Ohio and beyond, to create a profile, which allows them to better promote themselves and their work. Being listed in the OAR provides artists with new opportunities to share their work with clients, galleries, patrons, and audiences. A listing in the OAR does not confer an endorsement, approval, or verification by the Ohio Arts Council.
For more information, contact Kathy Signorino, artist programs director, at kathy.signorino@oac.ohio.gov or 614-728-6140.
2024 Ohio Artist Registry Juried Exhibition
Linda Langhorst
artistColumbus Ohio 43221 United States Cell Phone: 614-205-0215 Work Phone: 614-488-2477 Website: Linda’s website
Bio
Linda Langhorst’s early years were devoted to portraits and figurative work in graphite pencil and watercolor. Her focus was largely human connection and interaction. The shift to oil in the early 2000’s, with its permission for easy alteration, was a welcome change for the artist. A realist at heart, specific subject matter evolved according to the artist’s life experiences.
Fancying the celebration and fanfare as well as the reflective quality of big brass instruments, Langhorst spent a number years focusing on marching bands (and the people enjoying them), including Ohio State University and New Orleans Second Line Parades. OSU projects included the Fisher School of Business, Legal Services at OSU, The John Glenn Institute, and the New Ohio Union, including the designs for two exterior bass reliefs and a dozen interior paintings. Langhorst’s paintings are in corporate, public, and private collections across the country.
New Orleans horns evolved into a love for and study of the Blues Highway. The sites and sounds of the towns along the Blues Highway continue to be fruitful subject matter for the artist. Linda’s own experience with music making have informed her work as well. Now an instructor of beginning banjo, she splits her time between painting and helping her husband, musician John Bolzenius, run a family owned music store in Grandview, Ohio. These days, gardening is another art form for Ms. Langhorst, who finds the natural world just as fine a topic as human interaction. Her current emphasis is a series of paintings of Zion National Park and other parks across the country, which will be part of a solo exhibit at Sharon Weiss Gallery in June 2023.
Artist Statement
I believe all of the experiences of our lives inform the stuff we make, and how we make it. Many years ago I visited weavers at the Cultural Arts Center in Columbus, Ohio. Soon after, I began thinking of my canvas as a kind of tapestry. My painting approach is now an effort to weave together pieces of paint into a believable image that still feels like discrete brushstrokes.
My time poking around the Blues Highway taught me that there is always a history, a story behind the imagery we choose to portray. Playing music and living among musicians reminds me that music and painting have a great deal in common. I think more about rhythm and harmony in my mark making now- places of accord, places of discord, areas of crescendo, areas of rest.
Time spent in the garden and in the woods shake my senses past humanity and renew my conviction that portraiture is more than heads and shoulders – is more than the human form. For me, a portrait is an image honoring the soul of whatever has earned our reverence. A recent family trip to Zion National Park made clear to me that imagery can be universal, but can also have very personal significance. For my family, the National Parks are not only beautiful wilderness, they are precious moments of togetherness that hint of the infinity of love.
I don’t know where the next big influence will come from, but I’m paying attention.
