“You can go to any high street and buy a tube of glue, a magazine and a pair of scissors and you can make work, you don’t need a studio. It’s a really economic way of creating images – I like the democracy of that.” – Linder Sterling
Ahead of Linder Sterling’s 50-year survey at London’s Hayward Gallery, ArtReview’s Fi Churchman visited the British artist’s studio to gain insight into her practice and the objects that inspire her.
During the tour, Linder describes how she works in the studio – including the spaces she gravitates to for different aspects of her process – and the tools she uses to create her art; her preferred scalpels and glues, and her collections of archive magazines and books which provide the source material for her photomontages. Linder also tells us about how sound and smell play a key role in her studio; from the soothing and inspiring music of the tanpura, to the perfumes the artist chooses for the space, and the evocative odours her process awakens from the pages of vintage magazines. Churchman and Linder also discuss witchcraft, deepfakes and the medium of photomontage; the evolution of Linder’s work, against a backdrop of changing media; the potential immediacy of her work and how it allows ideas to be realised very quickly; and the artists from whom she has drawn inspiration – from Salvador Dali to the enduring appeal of Aubrey Beardsley that has seen Linder return to drawing.
Linder: Danger Came Smiling, a five decade retrospective of the artist’s work, is on view at the Hayward Gallery, London, 11 February–5 May 2025.
