A Minute with Lina McGinn

Hi! This is a newsletter about artists I like.

I began acquiring art through some friends who worked in galleries. I started small, working on a limited budget for stuff I could afford. As time passed, my collection grew, and it was exciting to watch many of the artists I'd collected go on to bigger shows and critical acclaim. My goal with this newsletter is to make a digestible resource for anyone interested in artists making excellent (and still affordable!) work whom you haven't heard about... yet.

Sorry for the delay for anyone that’s been eager for the next one….Seems like there has been lots of art news lately with the biggest news being the closing of Blum Gallery, Clearing and Kasmin. I think, too much probably, about what galleries need to do to succeed and work. I think the solution is simple : get more people involved. You do that by supporting early and at a price point that isn’t insane. People have to be able to begin their art collecting journey at a place that’s not the same as a down payment on a house. Start them off with a print or a limited edition book with a drawing. Karma Books does an amazing job of this. Hopefully I will be able to buy something from an artist of theirs but in the mean time, they do these amazing books where the artists draws/paints on the cover and the cost is anywhere from $250-$2,500. I just think it’s such a smart way to get people to support the overall gallery and stay in the know with all their programming.

Anyways, Lina’s work stopped me when I first saw it and annoyed her for a while to answer some questions. I’m so glad she did !! To check out her show with Europa Gallery online, go HERE.

I wish I could see the show in person, but I’m in Florida. I did notice one of the works in the show is titled “Drummer from Florida (Maybe in Another Life),” is there a personal connection to Florida?

None whatsoever! I was born and raised in NYC, where I still live and work. The titles for this series all come from personal ads on Craigslist’s New York City “Missed Connections” page. This one is among my favorites—it captures both the humor and longing I’m exploring in the work.

How long did it take you to create these sculptures for the show?

LM: All of the works were made over the past year.

Forgive me for the absolute amateurish question here, but how long did it take for you to find/envision/create this body of work? Does this question even make sense?

LM: Totally makes sense! It’s always hard to pinpoint exactly where and when an idea begins or ends. I first started casting cardboard boxes in 2017, for my solo show that’s how the light gets in at Gymnasium (Brooklyn, NY) a project space in Williamsburg founded by curator, Quinn Schoen. At the time, I was drawn to the box as this found, ubiquitous, monolithic form—something that referenced, but also playfully poked fun at minimalist sculpture. 

Back then, my process used the box as an armature: I’d coat the exterior in fiberglass, then remove the cardboard so what remained wasn’t a reproduction, but more a representation (or ghost) of the object. I eventually moved on from that work, but it never really left me.

In 2024, I had this idea (more like an intrusive thought) to make a portrait of Bradley Cooper out of a found Amazon box as kind of a riff on Robert Rauschenberg’s Cardbird works. I never figured out how to actually make Cooper à la Rauschenberg, but the idea pulled me back into working with boxes. This time, I began seeing them as crushed, discarded forms—figures, portraits, effigies.

What’s currently motivating or inspiring you? This could be music, fellow artists, a film, etc.

LM: The inscription on Frank O’Hara’s tombstone: 

“Grace to be born and live as variously as possible.”

What’s next for you?

LM: I’ll be starting my Sculpture MFA at Yale this fall!

When you’re making work, can you talk about your schedule and process? Do you work on a strict schedule or is it looser and more intuitive?

LM: My studio schedule shifts depending on what I’m working on and what else is happening in my life. I’ve always balanced my studio time with a day job. I also co-run Art Lot—an outdoor sculpture space—with artist Jacob Jackmauh (which I consider a big part of my practice!). So most of my studio work happens in the evenings and on weekends.

For my most recent show, Dear John at EUROPA (New York, NY), the lead-up was especially intense. The installation was ambitious: I knew it depended on having a large group of sculptures, each one’s personality influencing the others, so I kept a rigorous schedule in the months before the opening. On an ideal, full studio day, I’d start early in the morning and head straight to the studio. The first thing I’d do is put on music. Music is central to how I work and think— the show’s title even references Taylor Swift’s ballad, “Dear John” (while also nodding to the 2010 film based on Nicholas Sparks’s novel, starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried, as well as the breakup letters women sent to soldiers during World War II.) While making the show, I listened to a lot of Jeff Buckley, Future, Neil Young, Billie Holiday, Ethel Cain, Lucinda Williams, Drake, and Chopin—all artists whose work carries a sense of yearning, which I think carries through in the sculptures.

The process for Dear John was intensely physical, grounded in its relationship to my own body. Each piece began as a found cardboard box that I crushed, bent, and shaped with my body weight and strength—almost like a wrestling match or dance. I coated the interiors of the beaten cartons with fiberglass and polymerized gypsum. Once the material set, I would and discarded the cardboard, leaving a hollow fiberglass form frozen in collapse. I finished each sculpture with enamel paint and polyurethane resin.

The resulting sculptures are physical records—of my body, my strength, and my limitations—but also of something larger: the city, the supply chain, and the countless unseen hands that moved the material before it reached me. In this way, the works function as both personal and collective portraits.

Who should we have on next?

LM: Morgan Canavan, an artist who’s current solo exhibition, CALM is on view at Art Lot, located in Red Hook (Brooklyn, NY) through September 30th.

• Speaking of ways to start collecting…..have you checked out GOODSTUFF? It’s where I sell books by artists to then buy art. Buy something so I can then buy something. If you see something, take 20% off and DM me since you subscribe here.

• I enjoyed this take on what galleries can do to attract more buyers and stay in business etc. READ HERE.