Awards, Honors & Quotes

• 2016 – Received Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts – Pine Manor College
• 2012 – Artist Profile – YYZ Living
• 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

Laszlo Cser
A tour de force.  A wild and wonderful historical narrative in the hands of a contemporary master.

Johanne Polycarpe, translator
Avec l’objectif de votre appareil, vous nous faites redecouvrir des merveilles dont nous ne prenons pas conscience.

Jane Harrison
You have emerged as your authentic Self.

Dan Aubel
The color pallet is fantastic and rich befitting Homer’s account of Odysseus’ epic journey and trials at the “wings” of the sirens. Detail is breathtaking.
Congratulations on the fruit of your labor and what it has gifted me and others who will experience your heartfelt talent translated to canvas.

Julian Porter KC
FANTASTIC, marvellous, great work!

Cylla Von Tiedemann, Photographer, Astrologer
I really adore this painting.. it seems to come from a very authentic place, free, creative and mysterious. It’s a huge accomplishment.

Catherine Mitchell, Publisher
The Jackman portrait really draws one’s attention. It feels of the day still and the colours and detail amazing. What a talent you are. Kathleen Wynne and David Peterson were also incredible works.

Jeanne Brasciani, Isadora Duncan Dancer, Artist-in-Residence, Director Of Education, Isadora Duncan International Institute, Inc.
No one is more worthy than you! You in your art of portraiture, in its verisimilitude and its mystery, is the auric field in which you must be cloaked and held. It awaits and must be reached.

Linda Kricorissian, Art Scholar
What an incredibly diverse body of work!!  I am in awe of your talent.  I was also delighted to see so many individuals you have painted whom I recognized from different walks of life.

In addition to your penetrating portraits of many well known people, your landscapes and still lifes are also remarkable… I like your ability to portray your subjects in different ways, from high realism to abstraction. As you mentioned, your photographs are like paintings and your paintings like photographs.This fluidity allows you to dig into the essence of your subjects.

Philip Hodgkins, Manager Director, Member of Several Boards
Simple words, brush strokes of fresh sight, thought and touch provide the taste of enduring memories. It’s what you do: eloquently.

Janet Jané, Friend
You truly have a gift which you use to brighten other people’s lives!

Painter Earl Killeen and Raechel Killeen, Author and Editor of The Northlight Book of Acrylic Technique
We also want to tell you how happy we feel when we look at your paintings.  All good art transforms and expands our perception of ourselves and the things around us; but yours is imbued with a kind of magic – a sense of capturing the essence of a specific moment – both its substantiality and its fleetingness – held in a delicate balance that welcomes us to feel that we’re stepping into a world where all things – including light, shadow, and space – exist in their Platonic-ideal form.  Even though it’s YOUR birthday, we thank you for this gift.

Raechel Killeen, Editor
Of all the art in the North Light book, your paintings are the only ones that remain vivid in my memory —  especially the portrait of the judge.  I still feel a glow of fondness for him.
Note: Actually, the portrait was of Edwin A. Goodman, PC OC QC, Canadian Lawyer and Chairman of the Royal Ontario Museum

David Staines, Canadian Literary Critic, University Professor, Writer, and Editor
How much we miss while the world is such a dangerous place. This is the function of art, your art, to remind us of the true ideals of this existence
KEEP AT YOUR WORK! It matters!

James Miller
There is nothing superficial about your work – there is always something that makes the little grey cells get to work.  I think of Kildare’s poetry which has the same effect.

Roslyn Orenstein, Artist
You know there are many realist painters but nobody has your sense of lighting and almost iridescence in watercolour.

Michel Fleury, retired teacher
La photographe a su exprimer la sensibilité, la personnalité des
sujets ..bravo Linda ..la brillance est remarquable .

Robin Dawson
I love the way these are arranged so naturally and the way you have painted the water. Too many store bought roses and their portrayal are just too perfect. These, though, look like they have just been cut from the garden; they’re delicate and vulnerable …and I bet have a divine scent.
So well painted

Johanne Polycarpe
J’étais en train d’admirer le tableau que tu as partagé…  Un doux sentiment d’apaisement m’envahit ce samedi matin agité.
Le bleu du ciel et le bleu de l’encadrure de la fenêtre sont d’une telle sérénité que j’ai envie de m’y insérer et de goûter cette paix… loin de tout..

Lani Kopczinski, Curator of the Ontario Government Archives
I did get a chance to see the portrait in person and was in awe at what a great job you had done. I am very glad to have been a part of the process and to have worked with you!

Dan Aubel, Photographer/Musician
I’ve been a passenger on ‘this train’ many, many times——especially earlier in my life when traveling by train was more commonplace up and down the eastern corridor. Sitting with my head towards the window (always window seats on planes, trains, etc.) watching the closest objects in the foreground blur as we pass but the distant objects retaining their distinct form as they seem to move slowly on to become memories.
Perspective is an amazing thing.

M. Lynne Thurling MD, Ph.D., FRCP(C) 
Beautiful —clean, stark and silently eloquent.

Jerry Eubank , Photographer
It dawned on me that I have failed to let you know how impressed I am with your body of work, both in scope and execution. Your range and and skill in both technique and subject matter leave me mightily impressed. Mastery of any medium is difficult and your skills with watercolors and acrylics, as well as photography and the interesting interplay between the techniques and ways of seeing is impressive to say the least. I love how you take advantage of the delicate accidental nature of watercolors, while at the same time being able to utilize the crispness of acrylics without losing some of those subtle transparencies.

Your images make me yearn to travel again!

Paul Schillinger, Fine Art Printer
It is an honour to know a fine artist who is technically adept AND has a very good eye. Beautifully detailed work with that “photographic quality” that only a highly talented artist can achieve. The reflections on the desktop and the details in the books are quite incredible

Judy Goldring, President and CAO and member of the Board of Directors of AGF Management Ltd. And Chair of the Univ. of Toronto Governing Council

You have to be so proud of the impact you have had on so many people, Linda. It was so great to see Steve Coxford, the former chair of Western, and so great to feel how impactful the experience of having a portrait done by you.  We talked about you and our respective experience with you during the portraiture experience.  He also mentioned he is a close friend of Kathleen Wynne and said he just had lunch with her and exchanged similar conversation about their experience with you.
You are a force!!

Wendy Raineri, Painter
Without minute neatness of execution, the sublime cannot exist! Grandeur of ideas is founded on precision of ideas.~ William Blake
The last sentence of this article made me think of you . . .the grandeur of your ideas, Linda, is so beautifully expressed by the precision of your brushstrokes.

Dini Petty, Television host, Entrepreneur

Beautifully peaceful photo – the artist and the piano are one flowing entity

Sophia Zikos, assistant to Dr. Thomas Bell
We see apples and you see art.

Jeanne Bresciani, Ph.D.
Founding Chair, Festival for the Reinstatement of the Delphic Games, IDII Cultural Ambassador, Internazionale Associazione per il Carnevale di Venezia, Isadora Duncan International Institute, Inc.

Your portrait of your mother never leaves me…for I was with herone of the most perfect few days we ever spent together up here in High Falls, then to Saratoga for the Isadora Induction and on to Hunter to meet the fabulous, warm loving family…and she wore that red hat on that perfect July weekend and was like an eternal blossom herself.  An instant eternal made by you

Rev. Fr. John Guilbert Mariani CM. SOLT,
Casa Alta, Ourem, Portugal
On the portrait of Vern Krishna and Evening Shadows

The Krishna portrait startled me. It is so direct and engaging that I had to unlock my eyes from his gaze every few seconds and let my eyes roam around his room and observe the chair, the carpet and architecture before returning to him. I felt suddenly shy before him, almost embarrassed to look back. Shy, yes, but something else. A strange attraction to his reaching, sober kindness. In the majority of portraits that I have seen the artist has allowed me to run my eyes all over the subject’s face without consequence, like observing the face of a dead person. Your picture was a new experience for me.

The one entitled Evening Shadows held my attention the longest. I delighted in the soft shadows on the wall and dappled light on the flagstone and bushes. I returned again and again to all the subtle details, the mat outside the doors, and most unexpectedly, the door’s tiny incompletion of the top left hand wood moulding. It would be the most natural thing in the world to complete that small angle, but that minuscule detail created in its absence a kind of creative tension in an otherwise pacific and conventional treatment.

I can’t properly describe another aspect of this picture, but it relates to another tension that I loved. I would have to call it a pleasurable coexistence of spare and lush qualities, one reinforcing the other. The palette is spare. There is no depiction of any cluttering thing, like clouds in the sky, nor a pot of flowers, nor old shoes left out near the door, nor a single flower anywhere. The French doors are closed, and there is not invitational narrative there. There is nothing to give up the house’s secrets. These handsome doors with the transom above give hint to perhaps a good room within, bit there is nothing else to suggest what sort of house this is. A cottage, a mansion? Will there be someone bursting out at any moment to arrange cocktails on the terrace? Or is it closed for the summer? There is no cue to what kind of person might live there, nor how. Its very sparseness of detail invites a conversation with the viewer. In spite of the sparseness it is a picture alive with possibility and sense of abundance…a place one would like to be. Perhaps it is a fact that you devote almost a third of the canvas to the whimsy of the aggressive, but unthreatening, unclipped bush, and it is this that provides counterpoint to the house’s solemn dignity, and gives the picture a restless, unrestrained extravagance in an otherwise contemplative rendering of great simplicity. Whatever it is, I enjoyed it very much, and I enjoyed thinking about it.

Kildare Dobbs, Writer/Poet 
There is one thing I would like you to understand. Linda is a person for whom the visible world exists. She loves that world as it presents itself. She is passionate about it. Where the light is coming from, where does it fall, what is its quality. So, when with camera or paintbrush, she looks directly at that reality she commits herself to rendering it.

The other day I was talking with the modernist critic, a journalist really, and telling him that so-and-so was studying perspective. And what would be the point of that? The journalist wanted to know. He was sneering at the idea. He could not imagine that anyone could be in love with the nature of what is visible fact. Well, I ask you to try to imagine that very thing when you’re looking at Linda’s work – photographs or paintings, it makes no difference. The artist looks at the world and looks beyond it. And of course it is true that like any abstract expressionist, she sees the relations of colours and forms that nature presents. These ideas come from looking carefully at Linda’s work.

Astrid Lobo, Photographer
Through your work I’m learning that even muted gestures can tell a story.

Joey Schooley, model
I love listening to you speak. You are one of the best orators I’ve ever listened to…You look out amongst the crowd, really seeing your audience; you radiate passion, intellect, wanderlust, curiosity and honesty without being confessional. You are able to describe your work in a way which helps the viewer see thru’ your eyes along with their own, all done in honour and with humility. You may not believe in past lives but in my world, you are proof that it takes many lives to evolve and ‘bake’ such a beautiful soul that you are.

Sharon Bray, Writer, Educator, Author
Your photography is extraordinary and I love how you’ve captured the duo, their essence and movement.

Carol Brooks
The technique speaks for itself.  Thousands of hours of practice both in dance and “art” behind the lens.  Bravo!

Andrey Lekarski, Master Painter & Sculptor, Paris, France & Bulgaria
Linda est devenue une artiste de grand talent, ayant une maîtrise de l’aquarelle tout a fait exceptionnelle!!!!

James Kearns, painter/sculptor 
You have a quality of luxurious elegance that is delight
to behold. It’s the kind of thing that takes doing, delicate manipulation,
practice, professionalism. It’s always a pleasure to see something really
well done.

Donna Schultz-Heidbreder, Writer
I still recall so vividly the exhibition of your work in New Jersey: it was so filled with such wonderful (((LIGHT))) — I needed sunglasses!

Dini Petty, television host, entrepreneur
I am smiling as I write this
it feels good to smile again
genuinely smile with happiness in my heart
which is how I always feel when I’m around you
you are so beautiful
inside and out
We have been on long journeys since we first met
and that our paths have crossed again
and as always fit so nicely together
I will paint again and
maybe someday soon you will too.

Joyce Borenstein, animated filmmaker
It reminds me of something that Lida [Moser] said about the shots she took of New York at night from the Empire State Building “it was like looking into a giant treasure chest”.

Colin Carberry, poet
You are a first-class artist and I follow everything you do with keen interest and excitement. I’m not as in the know as you are concerning matters of art – I just respond to what I see, but in my humble and unenlightened opinion if one does not respond emotionally as well as intellectually, then it’s not quite art. In your case, I’m curious, alert, excited, and intellectually engaged, all at once. And that’s after gazing upon countless works of art, by artists known and unknown.
It’s the same with poetry – it shouldn’t be some kind of crossword puzzle: if it’s great poetry, you’ll know. Immediately. And in your case, there’s never any doubt.

Doug White, painter and draftsman
So many times in the past few years I’ve reminded myself to write you a note of appreciation for including me via email in the regular viewing of your outstanding illustrative photo images. Indeed; In much the same way I respect and have always admired your skills in drawing and painting – I feel the same way about your photos. Many of them read like your drawings do. Great work!

Paul Dempsey, Former Irish Ambassador to Canada
We are impressed with what you can do with even a small Lumix.! Hope the urge to paint again gets stronger – you are so talented, it would be a great pity if, like Milton, you came to mourn that: “That one talent, which is death to hide, lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent to serve therewith my maker and present my true account, lest He returning chide.”

Claudine Laabs, nature photographer
Each image is strong and beautiful!

Sam Selecki, professor Univ. of Toronto, writer
I find it difficult to imagine a better photograph of Kildare, though I’m sure that you took many as good or better. This one captures him with the same comprehensive sympathy as a great oil portrait. Looking at it I can hear him chuckle, lightly clear his throat and begin the lobbing of the conversational ball across the net.

Reiko Morita, modern and Duncan dancer and university dance professor, Japan
Very excited about all your dance photos.

Brian George, Vistek
What a wonderful photograph of Kildare…you can see kindness, talent, wisdom, and Magic….glowing in his face……..

Gayle Robin Pres. Founding Partner, StrategicAmpersand Inc.
Linda is one of my favourite people and artists. I loved reading this article which provides a glimpse into how such a gifted artist approaches her work. She sees what most of us don’t even know is right in front of us and she understands her subject in a very intimate way. I think maybe we could all learn a little bit from her.

Andrea Hanak, choreographer/lead performer of Cadence Dance Academy and award winning sales representative Royal LePage
A beautiful soul, Linda has been at every salsa event I can remember going to for the past ten years. All of her tireless work of taking literally countless pictures has resulted in a stunning exhibition of art pieces that show each and every dancer in a unique, truthful, sometimes playful, sometimes laser-focused, but always stunningly beautiful light. Her pictures lead your eyes directly into the dancers’ soul, and their ever-present being. That is a hard task in itself. Knowing personally pretty much every single dancer in the pictures I can honestly say that she has chosen to display our art in the most real, thoughtful and incredible way. Thank you for sharing our passion through your passion.

Andrey Lekarski, Master Painter & Sculptor, Paris, France & Bulgaria
Linda est devenue une artiste de grand talent, ayant une maîtrise de l’aquarelle tout a fait exceptionnelle!!!!

DonnaSchultz-Heidbreder Writer
I still recall so vividly the exhibition of your work in New Jersey: it was so filled with such wonderful (((LIGHT))) — I needed sunglasses!

Al Moritz, poet
About Spring Has Sprung

Beautiful! I especially like the tree crowns in the upper part of the photo. It isn’t easy to capture this “pointillist” impression of early spring, when the just fledgling leaves create a translucent haze or scrim of varied colours hung in the air down every vista. Here we can see that but are at the same time close enough to make out almost the structure of the maple flowers and the coming maple leaves. Beautiful. The works of man also come out well. I’ve often thought about the way in which a fence, such an awful reality and symbol, becomes in artistic renditions of it like the one created here by the architects and captured in the photos, a sort of poem that brings out the beauty of man’s agony: a poem of our being captured passionately in our need to bar each other, like a poem of war.

Paul Dempsey, Former Irish Ambassador to Canada
We are impressed with what you can do with even a small Lumix.! Hope the urge to paint again gets stronger – you are so talented, it would be a great pity if, like Milton, you came to mourn that: “That one talent, which is death to hide, lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent to serve there with my maker and present my true account, lest He returning chide.

It seems almost an impossible pose. It makes dancer’s feet look like they are in sand, submerged or below the margin? Very dramatic.”

Paul Dwyer Writer, choreographer, dancer, archivist
Those already familiar with Kooluris Dobbs’ photographs and vibrant paintings will recognize her as a genius of “atmosphere”. She has a penchant for highly developed compositions within each of her photographic frames. A superior grasp of geometry gives movement, guided pathways as the viewers eye moves over the surface of each photograph, very much in a painterly style. This adds much to the interest and enjoyment of the images and constitutes a choreographic sense of ocular vision.

Haili Pan, artist
What a career! Your optimism, determination and dedication to art, your energy and hard work is really admirable! You stood firm and consistent in your own style, which is natural, simple, pretty, precise, realistic, never seemed influenced by others, very rare in the modern period we lived in as an artist. It stands out!

Jennifer Au Coin Producer of Canada Salsa Congress, Director of Steps Dance, choreographer, dancer
It was wonderful to see photos that really showcased the emotional, passionate and artistic side of what we do – not just the technical side. She really understood how the dancers felt up on that stage.

Tarek Al-Shubbak, head of operations Wigmore Hall, pianist, Faculty member of Trinity Laban
“I saw some pictures of the festival (The Casa dei Mezzo Chamber Music Festival, Crete) on facebook, they are fantastic. I didn’t hear you or see you doing them while we were performing, and I always did in the past, you are the 007 of photographers.”

Joel Masacot Composer, musician, choreographer and dancer Masacote Entertainment
You can see the passion for her work in her photography.

Susan Rosen, painter
Linda, your work is consistently beautiful, interesting, and intelligent.  It’s easy to love it.

Clifton Stennett choreographer, dancer, Cadence and Steps Dance Companies
An excellent job capturing the moment.

Paul Dwyer, writer, Isadora Duncan scholar
The photo is filled with nuance that your art carries instinctively.
About another image: It has your artistic stamp, strong geometry, classicism & modernism combined & a great architectural sense!

Jeanne Brasciani Dancer, choreographer, Isadora Duncan International Institute
Speak of being in the moment!!

Gabriel Beer, Physiotherapist
Another Piece of Heaven.

Hampus Von Post Scientist, Sweden
Her present work is breath taking. The dance photographs are sensitive, sensual and beautiful.

Gunars Roze, Photographer
She is like liquid here.

James Kearns Artist, Arts Instructor, U.S.A.
Thank you for the dance photos. They are marvelous. The New York Times loves dance photos also if one can judge by the number of such that appear regularly in the Arts sections. Yours are different. Their photographs aren’t as close up as yours. They are taken from a greater distance with the result (I think) that there is an emphasis on spectacular movement. The “Dance” in capital letters which makes the figures rather anonymous. They represent Dance. Yours, on the contrary are close up and the dancers are real people. They have individual faces, bodies that have a sculptural quality in dramatic movement, individuals dancing!!

Janet Jané
Nothing else exists for them at this moment
You can see by their expressions how totally rapt they are in the music and movements.

Lida Moser (1920 – ) Photographer, U.S.A. 
The book, the Gardens of the Vatican is a treasure. It is a superb gift to all of us. Linda Kooluris Dobbs has captured the beauty of every detail of the gardens from the smallest petal and tender leaf of all its flowers, its bushes, its pathways, its sculptures. She has given all who have the book the gift of intense beauty. With her camera, Linda has transformed a burst of water from a fountain into a glorious canopy of innumerable stars ˜ All more I can say is Bravo and Hooray and thank God for the talents he has bestowed on her and Kildare Dobbs, her husband and author of the Gardens of the Vatican.

Anne Tait
very sexy, very strong … I can hear the music!

Heriberto Acanda Curator and Artist, Cuba
No se cómo puedes captar tanto movimiento, luz y elegancia, de verdad que estoy imprecionado con estas nuevas imagines que haces de las bailarinas, que puedo hacer para que me impartas un curso, de verdad que me gustan mucho, depues las difrutaré con más calama, gracias port anta delicadeza.

Sam Solecki, Scholar
What a stunningly arachnid photo, beautiful, delicate and entrancingly ominous at the same time (think of Augustus John’s Marchesa Casati in the AGO)—the dangling fingers of the left hand, the suggestion of a hump in the flesh back of the right shoulder, and pink-wanting-to-be red ballet shoes. Wow. And she seems light enough to be, not just seem, suspended in air. If only the dancer’s first name had been Arachne, Arachne Cissoko!

Dr. Alina Cupryn Toronto
The photos are magnificent, they show the movement, the feeling, passion. They capture the unique moment that cannot be repeated

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.