“I have been a fan of John Links’s work from the moment I first saw it. The portraits are bright and colourful, which I love. You know immediately which character is being portrayed, and you know there is a story there somewhere. I would fill my house with these painting if I had the room!”
Judi Dench

‘Link’s paintings are colourful, quirky, fun, but in the expressive faces, our first impression is of a pervading melancholia, “that sense of being a bit lost, damaged”. The weight of human self awareness, and our isolation as individuals, are its crux. Colour vitalises, design contains and these cushion the melancholy. There is an imagined conversation: “Who am I? Where am I going?” Pondering existence, perhaps on the verge of some liberating insight? These paintings,like Shakespeare’s plays, hold a lightness alongside an intensity and weave a curious unexpected line between them.’

Taken from a longer article by Mary Goody MA (Courtauld Institute of Art)

 

John Link lives and works in Norwich.

  • 1965 – 1995. Theatre Director/TV Producer
  • 1995 – 2010. Director/Senior Tutor, LAMDA
  • 2004 – Artist

Exhibition history:

  • 2004. 14 Wharf Road (Victoria Miro) London N1
  • 2005. Absolute, London W1
  • 2005. The Crooked House Gallery, Lavenham, Suffolk
  • 2006. The Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford
  • 2006. Absolute, London W1
  • 2007. Withers, London EC1
  • 2009. No 38, Friars Stile Road, Richmond
  • 2010. The Rose Theatre, Kingston
  • 2011. Papillon, Brighton
  • 2013. La Gallery 360, Trivandrum, Kerala (12/12 Cochis/Muzaris Biennale)
  • 2014. The Globe Theatre, London
  • 2015. The Rose Theatre, Kingston
  • 2016. The Kellie Miller Gallery, Brighton
  • 2017. The Discerner Gallery, Mayfair, London
  • 2019. Theatre Royal Norwich
  • 2019. Mandell’s Gallery. Norwich