About

Biography

Cara Lynch is an artist based between New York and Nashville. Working across media, she is currently making (mostly) paintings, weathervanes, windchimes, and suncatchers. She is a 2020 graduate of the MFA program at Columbia University and received her BFA from Adelphi University in 2012. Recent presentations include Off the Grid at 5-50 Gallery in Long Island City, Less is a Bore at Blah Blah Gallery in Philadelphia, and Rise at Modfellows Gallery in Nashville. In addition to her studio work, she has created many commissioned public works including permanent installations for NYC MTA Arts and Design and NYC Health and Hospitals. She has created several temporary large-scale installations including projects for Nashville International Airport and NYC Department of Transportation. Her work has been featured in publications including Hyperallergic, Architectural Digest, and the Wall Street Journal.

I work in painting, sculpture, and public art. These disparate parts of my practice are unified by the inclusion of patterns or fragments that come together to form a whole.
My work is influenced by historic craft processes: theorem painting, stained glass, metalsmithing, mosaic, appliqué, and embroidery. These aesthetics are a manifestation of autonomy and a way for me to experience visual pleasure.

Sculptures:
My current sculptural practice began with a question: How can I act outside of myself, and what would I do? My sculptures perform for the viewer. I often combine parts of my body with functional domestic objects. These objects, for me, are aspirational. They contain myths of leisure, comfort, stability, or the American dream. By merging myself with these utilitarian objects, I create uncanny bodies that ask questions about agency, beauty, capitalism, action, and fulfillment. I am particularly interested in creating objects that interact with weather- especially wind and light.

Paintings:
My recent paintings are psychological landscapes. These fractured abstractions consider the literary term “pathetic fallacy,” which is used to describe the attribution of human emotion to nature.

Contradicting associations of beauty, comfort, leisure, and stability, the patterns and fragments of my darkened, splintering landscapes come together to form flowers and gardens. My work in painting explores weather as a harbinger, a specific emotional state, and a force we act with and against.

Public Art:
I have been creating large scale public works for over a decade. These projects incorporate bright colors and patterns arranged in abstract, geometric compositions that completely transform their environment. These works are often inspired by quilting and domestic craft techniques that embrace decoration. I recontextualize these aesthetics to reference notions of the "home" and "community" in public space to emphasize our collective agency and indicate that our public spaces belong to all of us.

My recent public works embrace Radical Joy in response to the precarity and anxiety we face every day. I create joyful experiences for visitors, residents, and passersby in the locations where I install my work.