linda lighton

Kansas City, Missouri

Linda Lighton is a Kansas City based ceramicist who creates work that reflects upon organic forms in nature, the glorification of violence, and feminism. 

As her interest in the role of war and violence in our culture has grown her ceramic flowers, pods and crystals have grown guns, gas pumps, bullets and lipsticks as the proliferation of war flowers in our American lifestyle.

Lighton reflects upon her work saying, “All my work is about feminism and feminist imagery. As a woman, I feel to be honest and to have integrity I must reveal and discuss what I know. What I know is in the United States, guns seem to be flowering like weeds, with a reverence for brute force and a resistance to humanity. I believe the best I can do is to keep this conversation alive. I use seduction and often humor as a way to get into the piece. Then I want the viewer to have the opportunity to think about a concept. My attraction to nature never wavers. To see the blooming, the unfolding in nature and the coming forth of life, as well as the retreating, is a constant in my work. My desire is to embrace the life force.”

Since 1979, Lighton has had over 60 solo exhibitions and participated in over 150 group exhibitions. Her work is in many national and international museums including China, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, Switzerland, and Turkey. She has also been to many international residencies and symposiums in China, Italy, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Japan Latvia, Lithuania, Turkey, and Spain. She is the founder and director of the Lighton International Artist Exchange Program which has sent 150 artists to 53 countries and the Arctic Circle and she is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics.