RECLAIMED /RECONFIGURED: THE WORK OF TINA LINVILLE
VIRGINIA BROERSMA When I was a kid, a favorite pastime of mine was building forts: outdoor forts made in the hollowed-out insides of bushes or towers of cardboard boxes, and indoor forts made out of sheets, pillows and furniture on the floor of my bedroom. I have memories of chair legs and broomsticks creating tent poles and the light passing through patterned sheets casting a soft glow on the hidden and stuffy cave created inside. These memories come flooding back to me when I look at Tina Linville’s work because they remind me of the inventive creation of youth and the fantasy of building something remarkable. One quickly realizes her work is best experienced when you slow down and linger. Her bulbous, tuber-like forms at first disguise what is beneath their surface through what looks like a giant patchwork skin. Fabric, which you soon realize is nylon (and transparent) is stretched like a cocoon over biomorphic forms and bizarre armatures, and reveals layers of objects and materials that are covered, wrapped and embedded. After spending time with Linville in her studio it becomes clear that the term “builder” could describe her almost as well as “artist.” Her constructions are grown from scraps, salvaged objects, or craft materials that have caught her attention and become meaningful to her. As she works with them, they quickly begin to take form - growing and mutating - in some ways crudely and hastily being attached to construct her ideas on impulse. I imagine her working in her studio like Richard Dreyfuss’ character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind - driven by some
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