Linda Craddock

Linda Craddock (b. 1952) is a Canadian visual artist living in Calgary, Alberta.Her work has been featured in exhibitions since 1973.

Craddock was born and raised in Vegreville, Alberta.She attendedAlberta College of Art + Design (1970-1974) and completed herBFA (1979-1981) andMFA (1986-1988) at the University of Calgary.In 1987 a series of six of Craddock's photographs were purchased by the National Gallery of Canada to add to the Canadian Photography Institute's collection.

In 1988 Craddock moved to Vancouver Island where she resided with her family and worked at a post secondary photography school in Victoria.In 1997 she moved to one of the Gulf Islands and employed the remoteness of the island's location to reflect upon her art. Craddock (then working under the name Linda Brock) found that the island's isolated location gave her the space for contemplation of her prior life, living in the Prairies.This enabled her to "go back to other times and places with ease and grace." Her exhibition Awaiting Memories (2003) was vastly inspired by these reflections on her personal life.After six years of living on Pender Island, Craddock returned to Calgary, becoming involved with the Calgary Board of Education and teaching photography at the University of Calgary.

In the series of paintings for the exhibition Hometown Dreams: Memory and Change, Craddock examined the elusiveness of experience, memory and time.In Hometown Dreams she explored her relationship with the community of rural Alberta. Craddock states, " None of us live exclusively in the present.What we understand as being 'now' is in fact an amalgamation of personal and collective experiences interactive with a current framework of existence.This defines who we are..."

A source of inspiration for the exhibition Levitas, was Banff National Park, where Craddock created a series of paintings centered on the sensation of levitation that she describes as a experience that exists in our dream state,"A desire to be 'free' or to transcend the bounds of gravity also results in our spiritual aspirations and changes the shape of our memories."

Craddock's work has been exhibited nationally in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan as well as being a part of a touring exhibition with the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, titled Portraits of Women in 1990.Her work is included in the collections of the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa, ON; the Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, AB; and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, AB.