Linda Stojak is an extraordinarily accomplished painter whose successful career spans more than three decades. She is noted for exploring the convergences between the corporeal and the ethereal in the context of spare, though emotionally complex female forms. Within the liminal space between identity and anonymity she presents alluring emanations, veiled in mystery, that invite a personal search for meaning. These figures read less as individuals but instead as timeless specters of humanity and feminity. Some of her figures hover on the canvas like ghosts, receding into smoky, sensuous darkness, while others are grounded in thick outlines that link firmly with their backgrounds. Close observation of her surfaces of apparently monochromatic color reveals an incredible range of tonality and finely-graded hue. These layered canvases of deeply textured, expressively applied oil paint attest to a laborious process that limits her output to only a few paintings each year. Stojak imbues her paintings with rich atmosphere and a reductive sense of suggestion through only the essential. Her figures are solitary, alone, but not lonely. Stojak says, "My hope is for my work to help people accept the emotions in themselves." The recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996, Stojak has been reviewed by Art in America and The New York Times. Edward Leffingwell of Art in America wrote of her work, "There is something hard-won about these anxiously drawn, oddly romantic figures that in their tense grace recall the drawings of Giacometti and Rothenburg." With a master's degree from Pratt University, Stojak's acclaimed painting is included in private and museum collections across the country, among which are the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Brown University, and the University of Pennsylvania.