Awards & Honors
2004 CANADIAN BUSINESS MAGAZINE FEATURE
SPLASH 8, NORTHLIGHT BOOKS, U.S.A.
1999 WATERCOLOR MAGIC MAGAZINE, COVER FEATURE
BEST OF FLOWER PAINTING 2, NORTHLIGHT BOOKS. U.S.A.
FLOWERS POCKET PALETTE, U.K.
1998 SPLASH 5, NORTHLIGHT BOOKS, U.S.A.
PARKHURST EXCHANGE COVER FEATURE
1997 BEST OF FLOWER PAINTING, NORTHLIGHT, U.S.A.
1996 SPLASH 4, NORTHLIGHT BOOKS, U.S.A
1995 NORTHLIGHT BOOK OF ACRYLIC TECHNIQUES, U.S.A.
BUSINESS QUARTERLY. COVER FEATURE
1994 TORONTO WATERCOLOUR SOCIETY, BEST IN ARCHITECTURE
ARTIST’S MAGAZINE. U.S.A.
SPLASH 3, NORTHLIGHT BOOKS, U.S.A.
1993 FEATURED IN APPLIED ARTS MAGAZINE
1991 PERMANENT MEMBER IN THE TORONTO WATERCOLOUR SOCIETY
TORONTO WATERCOLOUR SOCIETY, HONOURABLE MENTION
1986 CREATIVE DECADE AWARD MERIT AWARD, STUDIO MAGAZINE,
TORONTO
1985 CANANDIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL, CHOSEN FOR TWO
COVERS
ONTARIO LIVING MAGAZINE “GALLERY”
1984 ELECTED MEMBER OF HELICONIAN CLUB, TORONTO
1981 FINANCIAL POST ANNUAL AWARDS, MINING DIVISION, 2ND PRIZE
1968 ANNUAL ART PURCHASE PRIZE, PINE MANOR COLLEGE, BOSTON
Quotes
Richard Greene, writer, poet and professor
Linda Kooluris Dobbs is a dazzling portrait photographer. In two pleasant and easy-going sessions, she was able to produce a variety of portraits, both relaxed and formal, to suit the needs of my book-jackets and publicity campaigns. Those photographs have now appeared in newspapers all over Canada, the UK and the United States. Indeed, it is unnerving to open The New York Times and to see your own face staring back – thank heavens, the photograph was Linda’s work. She is a genius with the camera, and I can only be grateful that she exercised some of that genius on me.
Ian Burgham, Assistant Professor (Adjunct), Centre for Studies in Primary Care, Queen's University
I have been navigating by colours this morning...plunging into your website. Your work is so rich, vibrant, so thoughtful - and of course evocative. Your work gives me the same sweet scent of beauty that Neruda's poetry brings me. Such close attention to your subjects.
Catherine Mitchell, publisher & photography client
The photo session with Linda was a terrific experience, like sitting with a friend. I've never had such great photos.
Sandy Naiman, The Sunday Sun
John Godfrey should have commissioned a portrait
of Lucien Bouchard by Canada’s
premier portrait artist Linda Kooluris Dobbs if he wanted a provocative,
perceptive, complex and colorful picture of the man.
Her latest portrait of the Right Honourable Hal Jackman, Ontario’s 25th Lieutenant Governor…a piercing study of a man in his world.
The truths Kooluris Dobbs paints are timeless, perceptive and sometimes prophetic.
Marilyn Linton, The Sunday Sun
She always seeks clarity in form, shape, colour.
Cedric Benabou, Review of Vatican Gardens and Roman Reflections Exhibition
One cannot help but notice Ms. Dobbs foray into the subtle beauty of innuendo… takes
great care in communicating an audible, comprehensible visual message to
the audience. It is not an exhibit of mere prints, nor is it trickery. Her
work speaks clearly and strikes passionately.
Col. The Hon. Henry N.R. Jackman, 25th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
Linda Dobbs, one of Canada’s foremost portraitists, painted an excellent
portrait of me now hanging in the The Lieutenant Governor’s Suite at
Queen’s Park. Ms. Dobbs is a very competent and professional person
and I have no hesitation in recommending her for a commission to undertake
an official portrait for any major institution.
Tony Hillman, The Christian Science Monitor Radio and Television Broadcasting-
London Bureau
(In reference to his mother Dubarry Campau’s portrait) except to say
that because of your talent, and sensitivity… and because you knew
her as well as you did, you were able to capture on canvas so many of the
qualities that made my mother such an extraordinary woman.
Joan Murray, Director of the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Chimo Magazine
No matter what Kooluris Dobbs chooses to paint, portrait, still-life or distant
places- she imbues it all with a mystical double entendre.
Her portraits, interpreted by some as high realism are artful interplays of colour and shadow, of subject and background. They look like small hotly colored bouquets.
Her own conviction towards portraiture as a fine art form has, in only a short time, placed her among the most respected contemporary Canadian artists.
Diedre Kelly, The Globe and Mail
Old, young, mysterious, frank, they look out from the pink walls voiceless,
but so vibrantly present that you stop and stare and almost wonder if they
will speak. But they won’t, or rather can’t, and so their painter
speaks for them.
Joey Tanenbaum
Wanting to have a portrait of my mother Dr. Anne Tanenbaum painted for a
long while, you were professional in all facets of this commission and
your skill and insight capturing my mother was of the highest order.
Karl Jason, CIUT Radio
Never before have I seen such intensity achieved in watercolours.
Marjorie Harris, The Financial Post
Linda Kooluris Dobbs’ paintings are very much like the interior of
her home: They resonate an impeccable sense of design and suggest flowers
where none may exist. They also radiate the warmth that’s characteristic
of the artist herself.
Colette Copeland, The Medical Post
The first things to catch the eye are the light and detail in the portraits.
These are not dreamy illusory paintings; they are warm, light-filled with
strong color, and exactness giving great depth-in a word, they are alive.
Victor Dwyer, Canadian Business Magazine
Entering the apartment of Linda Kooluris Dobbs in Toronto’s Forest
Hill neighborhood is a bit like stumbling into an exclusive cocktail party,
albeit one in which you and Dobbs do all the chatting while a selected who’s
who of Canadian Society slightly stare you down…On top of that layer
[the underpainting]- which is where Kooluris Dobbs works out her sitter’s ‘lights
and darks, and general sense of contrasts’- the artist had, across
the balance of the portrait, meticulously added her final coat to make a
remarkably lifelike rendering…
Joe Gale, The Courier News
Her portraits are especially remarkable because of the subjects’ eyes
which seem to penetrate the space between canvas and viewer. It is not easy
to look away.