Artist Statement
Alterwitz constantly questions technology’s effect upon the individual as well as the complicated relationship that humans have with nature. Her work offers a remembrance and reassurance that our human rhythms are inextricably bonded with the energy of our landscape. The subject matter she uses is derived from a detailed investigation of life, of how the world works. Although the proposed results differ (the hypothesis of the scientist verses the personal experience of the artist), art and science together help to connect us as human beings.
Process Statement
Alterwitz’s philosophy addresses the constant challenge to keep a balance between the two sides of the brain: the logical and the creative. This duality is apparent throughout the body of her work, starting with her photographic equipment. Alterwitz uses digital cameras, to plastic cameras and high tech thermal cameras. The high-tech digital cameras produce clear, factual images that are believable and acceptable in our right-brained world. In contrast, images shot on film by the low-tech, simple workings of plastic cameras capture a spontaneous altered world.
Linda Alterwitz is a Las Vegas based visual artist. Having earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Denver, Alterwitz spent 25 years working primarily in oils and acrylics painting and drawing on large canvases to create nonrepresentational paintings. Alterwitz began exploring photography in 2006. With a vision that is painterly in nature, she digitally manipulates and layers together images to create large-scale, photographs.
Alterwitz’s philosophy addresses the constant challenge to keep a balance between the two sides of the brain: the logical and the creative. This duality is apparent throughout the body of her work, starting with her photographic equipment. Alterwitz uses both digital cameras and toy cameras. The high-tech digital cameras produce clear, factual images that are believable and acceptable in our right-brained world. In contrast, images shot on film by the low-tech, simple workings of plastic cameras capture a spontaneous altered world. Alterwitz’s inspiration, the inner workings of the human body and her external surrounding environment, plays with the dance of the two sides of the brain as well as the contradiction of fear and reassurance. Past personal struggles with medical issues were tempered by fond, childhood memories of playing in the sand dunes and forests of Gary, Indiana where Alterwitz grew up. It is this dichotomy that gives her work a comforting sense of familiarity while simultaneously creating tension.
Alterwitz has exhibited her work in solo and joint exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe. Recent group exhibitions include The Art of Photography 2011 (San Diego, CA), Project Basho Compe '12 (Philidelphia, PA and Tokyo, Japan), Texas Women's University, NYU, Vermont Photoplace Gallery, The Center for Fine Art Photography, 1212 Gallery, Newspace Center for Photoraphy, Texas Photographic Society, SilverEye Center for Photography, Womanmade Gallery, and The Julia Dean Photo Workshop Gallery, among other national and international juried competitions.
How to use our image viewer
Click on any of the thumbnail images to launch the viewer. You can then navigate forward and backward within the portfolio by clicking the left or right side of the enlarged image. Click the add to collection checkbox to automatically add an image to your collection. Image tags or search engine keywords appear below the collections' checkbox and each word or phrase is a link to potentially more image matches.