About

Biography:
Cara Lynch is a visual artist who works across media. She is currently making abstract paintings and figurative sculptures. She is a 2020 graduate of the MFA program at Columbia University and received her BFA from Adelphi University in 2012. Recent presentations include Homebodies at 334 Broome, Off the Grid at 5-50 Gallery, and Less is a Bore at Blah Blah Gallery in Philadelphia.

Lynch has created site-specific public artworks across the United States, including permanent installations for NYC MTA Arts and Design, NYC Health and Hospitals, and the City of Glendale in Los Angeles. She has created several temporary large-scale installations including projects for New Jersey Transit, Nashville International Airport, and NYC Department of Transportation. Her work has been featured in publications including Hyperallergic, Architectural Digest, and the Wall Street Journal.

Studio Statement:
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. I am currently most interested in appliqué, quilting, and metalsmithing. These aesthetics are a manifestation of autonomy and a way for me to experience visual pleasure. My subjects are both entrapped and enlivened by their form. I am sincere in my intention and aware of how ridiculous that may be.

One of the images I remember from my childhood is a ripple emanating outward in the shape of a heart. I returned to it recently while thinking about empathy and the way feeling moves between people.

I tried to build a kinetic sculpture that would produce this ripple in my studio. It was impossible. Water always reasserts the circle. I made several objects and dropped them in, one after another. They all failed. The failure made the image feel more poignant, not less. Love and care rarely hold the shape we intend. They are absorbed, redirected, faded away, and rounded off by forces we don't control. Sometimes, this feels futile, mirroring the way the images within my works disappear, fall apart, become muddy, or desperately hold themselves together. But trying still counts. I have embraced this image in all of its girlish ridiculousness but also its hopefulness.

The materials I'm using lately- dyed fabric, ceramic, and glass- are ones I don't fully master and that have a lot of material input. Their unpredictability forces collaboration rather than command. In my current stage of life, the illusion of the control I once had has been shattered, and everything seems like it could fall apart at any moment. Working with these materials is a negotiation and compromise. They have their own force I act with and against.

I embrace craft as an exercise in agency. The materials I use relate to the domestic sphere, and I consider them in relationship to my gender. They also carry touch. You can see my hand in them. That is the trace of someone who was here, trying, in all of its ridiculousness and hopefulness.

Public Art Statement:
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.