L.C. Armstrong: Sunset Over Sea of Bliss, 2001, Acrylic, bomb fuse and resin, 3 panels: 48 x 48 inches each

rmstrong’s unique paintings are renderings of flowers with stems made from burnt bomb fuses, which have been superimposed over landscapes reminiscent of the Hudson River School artists of the mid 19th century. They are highly saturated in color and exhibit a deep fetish finish.

Born into an impoverished family in Humboldt, Tennessee, L.C. Armstrong left home at the age of 16. She put herself through university and gained degrees from both the Art College Center of Design in Pasadena, California and the Art Institute of California in San Francisco.

Armstrong had successfully exhibited “tasteful” art for several years on the international level, but in 1994 tragedy struck in the form of a divorce and 3 deaths. As a result she stopped painting altogether and had given up her career.

With the birth of her daughter, Armstrong experienced a rebirth in her career. She realized that she was jealous of the painters that “painted from their heart” and radically changed her style into what she is doing today.

Armstrong began her professional career in 1991 with a sellout solo exhibition at Galerie Sophia Ungers in Cologne, Germany. During that same year she was a recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and her work was included in The Corcoran Biennial where it was purchased by the museum. Since then she has been included in major exhibitions worldwide such as the Biennale of Sydney, the Cornell Fine Arts Museum, the Van Abbe Museum in the Netherlands, the Art Museum of the University of Houston, the Arsenal Gallery in New York, the Brooklyn Museum and P.S. 1 in Long Island City, New York.

Armstrong exhibits exclusively with Marlborough Gallery in New York City with prices ranging currently between $40,000 and $90,000.

Art Interview: Can you tell me what L.C. stands for?

L.C. Armstrong: It stands for Linda Christine. I don’t make a secret of it. I was bought up in Tennessee where you always have a nickname and I had a choice of Teena or L.C so I chose L.C.

Art Interview: What was it like for you when you were growing up?

L.C. Armstrong: Well, I’m part Cherokee Indian. My great grandmothers on both sides had quite a lot of Indian blood. Many of the early settlers were trappers and intermarried with the Cherokee. But in 1830 Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law, which meant even if you were only 1/32 Cherokee your deeded land would be taken away and you would be deported to the West. My ancestors were relocated during the Trail of Tears, so my father was born in Missouri. His family moved back to Tennessee when he was a child and that is where I was born and stayed until I was 9 years old. I loved being there. I spent a lot of time in the woods daydreaming and playing Indian. I enjoyed a freedom that children don’t have anymore. But when my father re-married my mother for the third time we moved to Southern California. There my life changed completely.

L.C. Armstrong Desert Sunset over Garden 2004 Acrylic, bomb fuse and resin on linen 60 x 48 inches

Art Interview: What did your father do for a living?

L.C. Armstrong: He had a neon sign company, which he still does.

Art Interview: Was he aware of art?

L.C. Armstrong: He should have been an artist. He was an incredibly good landscape painter and he had the personality of an artist, hence the problem. He probably should never have been a father, just an artist. Then he would have been fine.

Art Interview: Did he encourage you to become an artist?

L.C. Armstrong: Not directly. He had me working in his sign business from the age of 9: cleaning brushes, doing lettering and sketching for signs. My brother worked with neon from the age of 10 and I used the power tools. You could say it was child labor.

Art Interview: Has that affected what you do today?

L.C. Armstrong: Absolutely. I realized that I could make a living from my trade skills and the day I turned 16 I left home. I set up my own business painting murals, customizing cars and lettering trucks. That was how I paid my way through school.

Art Interview: How long did you hold that business?

L.C. Armstrong: I had that business for about 10 years. I was working alongside going to school and I paid my way through all of it so it was a long process. I also had a lot of education: I loved school and I really never wanted it to stop.

Art Interview: What schools did you attend?

Mario Semere Untitled

After that I went to California State University, Long Beach for a while, but I didn’t like it so I went to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California where I was an illustration major. I had a brilliant color teacher there named Judy Crook who introduced us to “The Interaction of Color” color theories developed by Josef Albers. They make you take a lot of design courses and I learned a lot of skills that I didn’t already possess, such as an in-depth understanding of perspective.

Afterward I moved to New York City, worked as an illustrator, made a lot of money and absolutely hated it. Then I went back to school at the San Francisco Arts Institute and studied fine arts. There I received a completely different kind of education: they gave me a more concept-oriented education. I did video work, performance, sculpture, welding and, right at the very end I went back to painting.

Art Interview: Did you have any role models?

Sam Tchakalian Untitled 1986 Monoprint 22.25 x 30 inches

Art Interview: At what age did you decide to become a professional artist?

Art Interview: How did you make that transition?

L.C. Armstrong: I stopped doing illustration altogether and I suffered financially because of it, but I felt that I had to sever it. It’s just too tempting to continue as a commercial artist because the money was so good. I made about $2,500 for a week worth of work and in those days that was a lot of money. I just had to stop and get my head into a different place completely.

Tishan Hsu Fingerpainting 1994 Ink and acrylic on linen 71x177 inches

Art Interview: How did you meet Tishan Hsu?

L.C. Armstrong: I met him through Thom Merrick, an artist friend of mine who I went to SFAI with. Tom was working for Tishan at the time.

Art Interview: So you went from making $2,500 to $240 a week? That must have been a hard thing to do.

L.C. Armstrong: Yes, it was a very hard thing to do. I was married at that point so I didn’t have to worry about paying all of the rent. But we still had to move to Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, New York, which was not what it is today. We lived in a storefront that didn’t have sufficient heating.

Art Interview: How long did it take you to become self-sufficient with your art?

L.C. Armstrong: Well, I always sold pretty well. But I was 35 by the time I started showing. The writer Kirby Gookin came over to see Tishan’s work and talk to him about it. He said to me that when I was ready he would come and look at my work as well. So about 6 months to a year later I had him over.

Art Interview: Did you have a large body of work by then?

L.C. Armstrong Sunflowers in Chihuahua 2005 Acrylic, bomb fuse, resin on linen 40 x 48 inches

At the same time the art dealer Pat Hearn had some 4x5 transparencies of my work. She had sent them to a museum and after they had been returned Terrie Sultan came to visit Pat. Terrie was the curator of the Corcoran Biennial - she is now the curator of the Blaffer Gallery in Texas. She asked Pat Hearn if she knew of any painters and Pat showed her my transparencies. Then Terrie came to my studio in Williamsburg and put me in the Corcoran Biennial.

Art Interview: Had you had several smaller shows before then?

L.C. Armstrong: No

Art Interview: Was that a problem for you?

L.C. Armstrong: No, not at all. Some of my friends were amazed that I had entered at that level. I think they were surprised that I had made such a big jump; going from one group show, to a solo show in Germany and on to the Corcoran Biennial. After that I got into the Sydney Biennial and have been showing ever since. From the Corcoran Biennial I was invited to do a show with the Marsha Mateyka Gallery in Washington D.C. and I stayed with her up until recently, when I moved exclusively to Marlborough Gallery. But the Marsha Mateyka Gallery was a great gallery to work with and they always sold my work well.

Art Interview: When you first moved to New York was it your intention to become an art star?

L.C. Armstrong: I’m not an art star yet. When I was a little girl I used to wish upon a star that I would become an artist but famous was never in the equation.

Art Interview: When you began working professionally what was your opinion of the art world and how does it differ today?

L.C. Armstrong Sunrise Over Sleepwalkers 2005 Acrylic, bomb fuse, resin on linen 60 x 48 inches

You asked me who my role model is and I would say it would be Louise Bourgeois. I want to have a long career. I don’t want to be an instant hit and then washed up. I want some real substance to my work, I wanted to build up slowly and I wouldn’t want to be like Peter Doig. That would scare me. Some very wealthy people that have extra money to play with are manipulating the art market and I find that very disturbing.

Art Interview: Speaking of the market, how did you begin marketing your work?

L.C. Armstrong: In the beginning my dealer and I wanted to keep the prices low and build up gradually, which we did. But after I sold out 5 shows in a row I realized that I had to raise my prices because my work is so incredibly labor intensive. My work is 99 percent my own labor and apart from the panels that are made by someone else I do it all. So, I said to my dealer that I would prefer to raise the prices and sell less, and not have to make 35 pieces a year. That way I could do half as much work for the same amount of money.

Art Interview: What did your prices start off at?

L.C. Armstrong: $3,000 dollars; after the Corcoran biannual they moved up to $6,000 and today they are much higher.

Art Interview: I know that you have a triptych selling for $90,000. What are your prices on average?

L.C. Armstrong: My 60 x 48 inch paintings are currently selling for around $40,000. Triptychs are 3 of those and are $90,000; which means the buyer is getting more for their money.

L.C. Armstrong: Heaven, hummingbirds and herons, 2006 Acrylic, bomb fuse and resin on linen on birch panel, 3 panels:48 x 48 inches each

Art Interview: Have you ever had to justify your prices to anybody?

L.C. Armstrong: No, my work always sells and I don’t have a resale problem because the people that buy my paintings seem to keep them, or they sell them to a museum, which is even better.

Art Interview: How has your style changed throughout your career?

L.C. Armstrong: It has changed tremendously.

Art Interview: Why did you decide to work so colorfully?

L.C. Armstrong Green Vases with Oranges and Skulls 2005 Acrylic, bomb fuse, resin on linen 60 x 48 inches

Then in 1994 I had a terrible year. I divorced my husband. I had a show booked in Los Angeles, California but there was an earthquake just prior to the opening, so of course nothing sold. Then when I returned home my mother suffered a hemorrhage and died at the age of 59. Then my grandmother died. And at the end of that tragedy-filled year my second sister also died. It was a year that was book-marked by death and my heart was quite literally broken. At that point I gave up my career. I didn’t want to paint anymore. I was tired of making my living by selling paintings and I was determined to do everything differently.

My first marriage had gone sour for such a long time that I had already finished grieving for it. So, within a short time I met my current husband. It took me a while to actually go out with him, because I was still grieving so heavily for my family but eventually I did and we got on very well. We shared many things. He was a philosophy major and a collector. When I was 40 and we decided to have a child. Our daughter was born when I was 42 and joy came into my life.

When I was pregnant and really, really nauseous I would walk through the park near my husband’s old apartment. They had community gardens there and I would stop and look at the flowers everyday. I had an epiphany… if looking at the flowers gave me so much pleasure, then there must be something in it for me artistically.

When I started painting again I started painting with color and I really went crazy. I was given such freedom of color. It was as if I had a new box of crayons and I could use every color. It may sound funny but I was also very tired of doing things that were tasteful. I have been known to have good taste and I do know what it is but I feel that if you impose it on your work it hinders your creativity.

Art Interview: Was it difficult to come to that realization?

L.C. Armstrong: I just figured that everyone would think I had had a child and had gone soft. Nonetheless, the experience was a very refreshing one - it felt as though I was learning to fly in my dreams and it was totally enjoyable to have the attitude of not caring what anybody thought. I really believe that even if I hadn’t sold any of these paintings I would still be making them, just maybe not so large.

L.C. Armstrong Poppies and Putto 2005 Acrylic, bomb fuse, resin on linen 60 x 48 inches

I like to take ideas that are almost kitsch and see if I can elevate them to a serious dialogue. For a long time I tried to tell people that I still paint abstractly but they don’t believe me anymore. I work color against color. I work very intuitively and I let the first thing I put down determine what the next thing will be. I have a very loose idea of what I want to do. Right now I’m doing a big field of poppies and I draw right on the canvas and work from my gut.

Art Interview: I assume you lay down a landscape before you do the second layer?

L.C. Armstrong: Yes, I finish the landscape before I apply the flowers and bomb fuses. Normally, I will spend some weeks on the background, draw in and paint an undercoat of white for the flowers. Then I’ll draw the stems with charcoal and burn the fuses. The flowers are then painted opaque white, then color is applied in transparent layers to enable them to pop out off the background.

Art Interview: How did you initially start working with bomb fuse?

L.C. Armstrong M-87 1992 62 x 96 inches

At that point I was making panels in my woodwork shop. They had a perfect surface, as smooth as a piece of paper and so beautiful it was completely daunting. I came to the conclusion that the only way to get around this feeling of being blocked was to deface the panel in some way. I then noticed a toilet that had been burnt by cigarettes and I found the pristine ceramic with its burn marks to be quite beautiful. So I decided to burn the panel. I began by using cigarettes to make the burn marks but I found that in spite of never having smoked in my life I was starting to get a taste for them, even though all I was doing was lighting them and watching them burn. I thought: “Oh my God, I’m going to get cancer and these things are so expensive and they don’t even make very good burn marks.”

So I began to look for other ways to burn the surface. I bought all of these burning tools and torches. Then I happened across this little shop on Canal Street that used to sell weird little odds and ends. All the artists used to go there. In fact I honestly think this little shop changed the history of American art. You could buy various NASA materials in small quantities and you could also buy bomb fuse, which I stumbled upon and thought would be perfect. It was only 25 dollars for 100 feet, so I began to use the bomb fuse.

L.C. Armstrong Burning bomb fuse

Art Interview: How long have you been working with this material?

L.C. Armstrong: Since 1987

Art Interview: And you started painting the flowers in 1994?

L.C. Armstrong: Yes. I have some paintings from the time when my sister died, they too have flowers in them, but I have never shown them to anybody because they are too personal and too sad. They are what you could call my Goya‘ Black Paintings’.

L.C. Armstrong Blue Shift 1996 Acrylic, bomb fuse, resin on linen 48 x 40 inches

L.C. Armstrong: No. Actually yes, it took years.

Art Interview: Is it difficult for you to stay with what you are doing?

L.C. Armstrong: I’m not in the least bit bored with what I am doing. When I am I will move onto something else. I have so many more ideas for the flowers that I could imagine doing them for years. I am getting back to my first love: figuration. I used to do a lot of figure drawing but I found it hard to justify figure drawing when the camera does it so well. I’m starting to do the figures without using any photos - well, very little, so what comes out of it is a constant surprise. Some of the most enjoyable work I’ve ever done is when I am painting and on the phone at the same time, so I have no idea where these figures come from.

Most of the painting I do is very grueling; it becomes a mantra from me and is something I need to do. I had to impose a break on myself recently after a show: because I almost went crazy from painting so much.

If I didn’t have a child I would be like Lucian Freud and paint seven days a week. Somebody asked me the other day if I had any hobbies, and I thought: “Well I have a child and I paint, what else could I possibly have time for?”

L.C. Armstrong Blackout Over Brooklyn Bridge 2005 Oil and bomb fuse on linen 60 x 48 inches

L.C. Armstrong: Always 5 and occasionally 6. The building I’m in now is a little scary especially in the summer when everyone is away so I stopped coming in on Saturdays.

Art Interview: And you said that you work from 9 to 6?

L.C. Armstrong: I drop my daughter off at 8.30 at her school in Brooklyn Heights, and I arrive at the studio before 9. I do a little physical stretching and I am always working by 10.

Art Interview: How long does it take you to complete a painting?

L.C. Armstrong: The bigger ones normally take about 3 months. I have done one in 2 but that was a very grueling experience. And when I say 3 month I mean 3 months standing in front of the painting, even eating lunch in front of the painting.

Art Interview: Do you have assistants that help you?

L.C. Armstrong: I have had assistants in the past but right now I’m needing some time in the studio by myself so I only have someone for a few hours a week. The assistants do the jobs that enable me to stay working on the painting. They do a lot of running around, some of my computer work and some of the panel preparation. I try on occasion to have them do some under painting but I always paint over most of it so it’s a waste.

Art Interview: On an average how many paintings are you dong in a year?

L.C. Armstrong: You know, I don’t know. Last year I made 12 but 3 of them were 12 ft long.

Art Interview: I assume that you don’t have a large backlog of work in your studio?

L.C. Armstrong: I don’t have a storage problem really because I sell everything. The Marlborough Gallery has a beautiful warehouse that I will be able to keep my work in.

Art Interview: Everything is going directly from your studio to the gallery for your openings?

L.C. Armstrong Fiery Sunset 2003 Acrylic, bomb fuse, resin on linen 36 x 32 inches

Art Interview: So you have got to make sure everything is transported properly, is that something that the gallery deals with, the transportation?

L.C. Armstrong: Oh, yes, and they’ve been wonderful. I love working with them.

Art Interview: How has your productivity changed from when you first came to New York?

L.C. Armstrong: Well, I used to be a workaholic and spend 20 hours a day working. I didn’t actually manage to produce more. I would work on the same painting over and over, covering up layers of figures and landscapes. If you took an x ray to them you would see all the lost detail behind these pieces that became very minimal in their final state.

Art Interview: How do you keep yourself from getting bored with your theme or your subject matter?

L.C. Armstrong: Well, I try to keep my pieces changing slightly but in general I’m not a person that gets easily bored.

Art Interview: How do you keep yourself from changing the images so drastically that they don’t work cohesively?

L.C. Armstrong Dream Machine 1992 Mixed Media 192 x 100 x 62 inches

Art Interview: What was it that made you change?

L.C. Armstrong: I think that what I am doing now is essentially what I was always meant to do. Now I concentrate on pleasing myself. I don’t think about the audience and it is by coincidence that the collectors love this work. I thought my career was over when I decided to do this and I really didn’t care. I think you need to have that attitude. It doesn’t work to second-guess the market place or what people think. What gets you into the studio every day is doing what you really love to do.

Art Interview: How many paintings do you work on at the same time?

L.C. Armstrong: I am currently working on four. When you are working on these big pieces you start to feel a little like you are chewing through a telephone directory, so it’s good to be sketching other ideas and have other pieces to concentrate on.

Art Interview: What type of materials do you use for your panels. What particular wood do you use?

L.C. Armstrong: Simon Liu Inc. makes the panels from birch plywood. When I get them I stretch and glue linen over the panels with archival glue. My assistant then applies about 9 layers of Gesso and sands between each coat to remove any brush stroke or texture.

L.C. Armstrong Sunrise Over Sleepwalkers 2005 Acrylic, bomb fuse, resin on linen 60 x 48 inches

L.C. Armstrong: Yes, and it’s already the finest portrait linen.

Art Interview: Why do you choose to work with such a smooth surface?

L.C. Armstrong: The main reason is that it saves me time. When I used to customize cars I would be painting on hard, very slick surfaces and if you are using an airbrush then any texture doesn’t look good. There is almost no hand visible in my paintings; very few brush marks and certainly no texture.

Art Interview: That leads me to the kinds of paints you use and work with.

L.C. Armstrong: I almost always use acrylics because you cannot put resin over oils, as oil acts as a resistant. I love working with oils but I cannot use the resin if I do. With acrylic the paintings look more fetish finish, hyper-real and less traditional.

Art Interview: What kind of brushes do you use?

L.C. Armstrong: I always use cheap synthetic brushes because acrylic just eats through them and ruins them so quickly. The ones that are ruined I use for scumbling the background. I have to use a lot of layers with close color values to get the blending to work. It would be much easier to use oil paint.

Art Interview: Do you work with an airbrush to help with the blending?

L.C. Armstrong: Yes, I do use some airbrushing. But I actually hate using airbrush and I don’t use many friskets because I did too much of it commercially and burnt myself out on it.

The last commercial job I did was to make money so I could move to San Francisco. I was assigned to make photo-realistic renderings of Sony products with an airbrush. That is all done on computers these days. The tolerance for the friskets was 1/100th of an inch, which made me hate my life. I don’t have the patience or the personality to be an airbrush artist.

Hudson River School artist Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904) Cattleya Orchid and Three Brazilian Hummingbirds 1871 Oil on Wood 14 x 18 inches National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Edward Hicks (1780-1849) The Peaceable Kingdom about 1833 Oil on Canvas

The figures that I have been doing recently have been very stiff, similar to an early American portrait done with a very fine hand. What is interesting is those paintings were done by the equivalent of sign painters.

Nearly all the Hudson River School artists also came from very poor backgrounds. They were lithographers and sign painters. Edward Hicks the Quaker preacher who did the Peaceable Kingdom series started out as a coach painter, which was the equivalent at that time of a car customizer.

These people all had a certain hand quality that I admire. They may not have had classical figure training but their pieces were still done with a certain finesse and execution that is quite beautiful.

Art Interview: What brand of resin do you use?

L.C. Armstrong: It is called EX74: it’s an epoxy resin normally used for tabletops and surfboards.

Art Interview: Does this material have any archival problems?

L.C. Armstrong: It has a built in UV filter but it should never be in the sun. In some respects it’s a very tough product but the sun can easily damage it.

Art Interview: Do you have problems photographing the work due to surface reflection?

L.C. Armstrong: It is hard to photograph my pieces. Many people tell me that until they had seen my pieces in person they had no real idea of what they looked like. My pieces are incredibly ”slippery” and so full of color that the camera struggles to do them justice.

Art Interview: How many galleries have you been with throughout your career?

L.C. Armstrong: Sophia Unger’s was the first one, Marsha Mateyka, John Post Lee, which then changed to Bravin Post Lee, Angles in Santa Monica and Galerie Huebner in Frankfurt. I have shown one time or another with other galleries but these are the ones that I have been represented by, and then Postmasters and now Marlborough in New York.

Art Interview: Have there been differences in how the galleries work with the artists?

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