"Family portraits" of objects Americans have used from the colonial era to the present to spank their children.
While many parents grab whatever is at hand, others pass down the inclination to use a specific punitive implement from generation to generation, as if it were a recipe or holiday tradition. Some tools of punishment are culturally specific - la chancleta, the feather duster or the lokshen strap - while others, like the switch, seem to know no boundaries. And then there are some of us who suffered the additional cruel irony of being spanked with their own toys.
Linda Griggs was born in Oklahoma in 1960 and spent summers in South Carolina. Growing up in an area where storytelling was cherished it was only natural that her work would incorporate text in the manner of the artists she has admired such as Faith Ringgold, Dottie Attie, and David Wojnarowicz. Like many artists associated with place she lives in exile from that place.
She has had solo exhibitions at Christopher Stout Gallery NYC, Hampden Gallery - UMass Amherst, and Carolyn J. Roy Gallery, NY. Group shows include the Iwami Art Museum, Japan; Wustum Museum, Racine, WI; the Leubsdorf Gallery at Hunter College; Gahlberg Gallery - College of Du Page, Illinois; Albany International Airport Gallery; and the New York Public Library. Fellowships include the LES Rotating Studio Program and the Millay and MacDowell colonies.
MFA Hunter College
BFA Virginia Commonwealth University
Polemic is funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts and the
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
