Statement
My practice echoes old ways of studying the sky using new and old technologies. The paradox of my painting is that if I do my job well, no one sees how much effort is required. This resonates with our view of the atmosphere. We don’t see how temperature, humidity, and latitude affect the colors we perceive. Add smog, particulate matter, and a precise location on Earth and the atmospheric story changes again, perhaps more subtly but undeniably.
Using water I draw from the environment, via rain catchment and a dehumidifier, I thin paint and add layer after layer to the canvas. Expanding each color every stroke until the paint is dry. The fine gradients I create reflect the sky’s composition and, like the sky, show no single brushstroke.
The physical exertion required for each canvas is intentional. It demands that I be fully present with the paint, the brush, the process, and my breath. It is meditative and a means of exploring ideas and concepts through a multi-faceted lens. A different way of using my brain, hands, and eyes to categorize data, the work fascinates me. I watch as it grows and advances until there is a connection, a thread between me and the canvas. I follow the thread until it feels true. Each breath, like a thread in a tapestry, unable to be extracted from the interwoven emanations of life across time and space.
Photo: Madalyn Rowell
Bio
Lindsy Halleckson’s work lives at the intersection of art, philosophy, and science. She uses painting to illuminate the invisible atmospheric implications of climate change. Combining scientific research and emotional inquiry, her work highlights human interconnection with the living planet.
Halleckson has served as an invited collaborator working with atmospheric chemists on projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and one of her paintings appears in the Art x Climate collection as part of the 5th National Climate Assessment (NCA5).
Her work has been shown in galleries across the US and internationally, and her paintings have been commissioned for public and private collections from Martha’s Vineyard to Los Angeles. Her work has been recognized through numerous awards and grants including the Minnesota State Arts Board (2018, 2021, 2024), Metropolitan Regional Arts Council/McKnight Foundation (2017, 2023) and Puffin Foundation (2013).
Influential in her work, she has taken Arctic expeditions to conduct artistic research, including during The Arctic Circle residency program aboard tall ship Antigua in Svalbard (2018) and aboard ship Skydancer in Greenland (2023). Other art residencies she has enjoyed include residencies at Cuttyhunk Island Artists Residency (2025), Hinge Arts at The Kirkbride (2016), as a Jerome-funded Emerging Artist Fellow at Tofte Lake Center (2011) and at the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center (2010). She was an Art(ists) on the Verge 10 Fellow. Her work is currently represented by Wally Workman Gallery in Austin, TX. She has her BA in Studio Art and Art History from St. Olaf College and MBA from the University of St. Thomas.