Andrew Edlin Gallery is pleased to present The Insanity Principle, a solo exhibition of paintings by Linda Carmella Sibio. Show dates are September 2 - October 4, 2003.

Sibio has spent her life creating art that is edgy and strange. Her career began at the age of 11 when she started drawing in the basement of an orphanage in West Virginia while her mother spent time in different insane asylums in the state. Talented but filled with severe emotional and mental disorders she was
diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1977 while attending Ohio University.

Sibio refers to the artistic vision that guides her as The Insanity principle, which encompasses her perceptions as a schizophrenic. Themes she invokes include fragmentation, hallucinations, interrupters, and nonlinear time sequencing.

Sibio moved to Los Angeles in 1983. During this period her art centered around performance and began to deal with social issues such as homelessness, the plight of the mentally disabled, prostitution, drug addiction, suicide and haunted Hollywood apartments. She performed on her own sets amidst large installations that included sculpture, films, videos and paintings. She worked with the well-known Los Angeles artist Rachel Rosenthal who guided her during this period creating an extensive body of work including "West Virginia Schizophrenic Blues" (Franklin Furnace, NYC 1991) and "Energy and Light and their relationship to Suicide" (Walker Art Center, Minneapolis 1996, Reza Abdoh creative consulting director).

In 1997 she left Los Angeles due to mental health problems spending a month in a mental hospital and later found a house in Joshua Tree, California at a Buddhist retreat center where she currently resides.

In 1999 Sibio's focus returned to painting. She began her latest series using brilliant gouache paint and sumi ink on huge 8' x 4' sheets of Arches watercolor paper. Her bold figures are enveloped by several thousand meticulously rendered miniature images, a visual language she likens to Mayan hieroglyphics.

The Lannan Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the California Arts Council have all supported her work. She has been in such prestigious shows as "Out There" at the Walker Center (twice), The Asylum series with Franklin Furnace and Creative Time in New York. Sibio is also the founder of Berserk, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping artists who are mentally ill.