Lemons on Green by Linda Chido

Lemons on Green
Linda Chido
Oil and casein on hand made 100% rag paper
15.5"h x 15.5"w x 1.375"d , framed
2025

The Lemon Project began in the summer of 2024, when I took a paper making workshop with my son through Art Spark Texas, taught by master paper maker Drew Matott. We came home with a stack of beautiful, irregular, 100% rag paper, and I knew immediately I wanted to paint on it. I first had to figure out how to protect the paper's surface without covering up what made it beautiful in the first place. That constraint became the concept: each painting holds a single small object rendered in meticulous, realistic detail, floating in space so the paper itself stays visible and central to the piece. Each of the paintings is rendered in oils on that original handmade paper, then mounted onto 12×9-inch Nuabari artisan paper, then mounted again onto a cork panel, and framed in honey brown wood under acrylic "glass". The paintings are built using an indirect, Old Masters glazing method: light is first sculpted in whites over an imprimatura, then veiled with transparent and translucent glazes that act much like stained glass, allowing light to travel through color, refract, and return to the eye with a sense of volume and luminosity. The result is not just an image on paper, but a surface alive with depth, harmony, and light. What started as an experiment grew into a ten-painting series and a collaboration with the wider Austin artisan community: local distilleries contributed original cocktail recipes paired with the paintings in a limited-edition catalogue, and each piece was hand-framed by a longtime local framer. At its heart, The Lemon Project is a celebration of handwork and a meditation on the beauty of the everyday. As it evolved, it also became a testament to what’s possible through collaboration with the vibrant and inspiring Austin artisan scene. A scene I am immensely proud to be a part of.

Get to Know the Austin Artist:
Linda Chido is a multidisciplinary artist based in Austin, Texas. After earning dual master's degrees in architecture and urban planning, she spent nearly a decade practicing in the field before relocating to New York City in 1999 to pursue painting full-time. There, she traveled to Europe to study an Old Masters technique directly under Philip Rubinov Jacobson and went on to exhibit internationally. After a fifteen-year pause to raise and homeschool her four children, several with medical and developmental needs, she returned to her studio practice in 2020 and has since completed over 150 paintings, exhibiting in more than 30 shows across Texas and nationally, including two solo exhibitions. Her work is grounded in the same layered, luminous underpainting method used by the Old Masters, brought to bear on subjects rendered with meticulous, patient craft. Alongside her studio practice, she teaches art to the disability community, work she considers as central to her practice as the paintings themselves.