The influence of artists and designers associated with the punk, post-punk and new wave eras continues to endure. Like Jamie Reid, Peter Saville, and Malcolm Garrett (with who she created the Buzzcocks Orgasm Addict cover), Linder Sterling’s influence was established early on. She/they became instant celebrities making their own rules, taking influence from fine art, dadaism, situationists, pop culture and political movements. Linder, like Cosey Fanni Tutti, subverted the ubiquitous pornographic imagery of the 70s and 80’s, combining it with women’s domestic lifestyle and fashion magazines to create a new language revealing the crass narrative of both. Shocking and provocative, inventive and revolutionary.
Linder’s work continues to evolve and stay relevant. Then: top shelf magazines, casual page 3 poses; beauty queens; Pirelli calendars and BIG D peanut packaging. Now: proliferation of online hardcore; the porno-chic visual language of teen idols and art/fashion photography; the pressure of an idealised body image, botox and surgical enhancements. Her work comments on the value of older women, their diminishing professional, social and sexual currency. Linder offers an alternative criteria to that assigned by consumer culture to girls/women – self worth beyond instagram likes, expression through creativity, the value of individualism.
