Dale Lindman’s career has been dedicated to exploring abstraction in painting; in the past fifty years, he has mastered a vocabulary of light, color, and texture. These variables evoke a sense of time and place, sometimes a memory, a moment in the day, or a specific location.

Natural currents run through Lindman’s paintings. The juxtaposition of luminescent panels of color with the terrestrial ones, the sky and the land presented upon the same plane. They are simultaneously precious and earthy.

The titles give the viewer clues on how to view each piece. But ultimately these are open-ended paintings, inviting a purely aesthetic experience. To marvel at the craft and process, to wonder at the transitions from glossy pools and ridges of iridescence to the oxidized, craggy peaks. These contrast with the extremely flat color panels. It is hard to not associate Dale’s youth in the Midwest with the enduring flatness of these panels. A meditation on the vast horizon.

And though Lindman’s abstractions have an etherealness about them, they are constructed objects. Wooden panels bound into rectangles and more recently, circles. Lindman works with dry pigment, and mixes his own color, giving him full control of his tonal values and control to experiment with chemical processes. The appearance seems like the result of a natural oxidation, and yet, this is belied by the overall perfection and balance of the elements. It is within the realm of a highly controlled and natural environment that Lindman captures our curiosity and invites a moment of respite.

Kate Casprowiak Scher
Executive Director Bellevue Arts Museum
March 2024

I work on multiple wood panels that are joined together to make one painting.My materials include: acrylic emulsions, glass microbeads, dry pigments, copper powder, iron filings, and encaustic.

Works in progress, final paintings.

Dale’s studio is accessed with a long, uphill driveway.