Lynn Aldrich

Artist Statement:
Being here in time and space, in a body, in the world, seems both quite ordinary and very mysterious. My art begins with making conceptualizations about this condition of being and looking out at the world. A variety of materials are of interest, usually those common to a suburban-based, do-it-yourself, consumer society. Using careful craftsmanship, I don't alter my media so much as attempt to reveal, through accumulation, repetition, or placement, the metaphors inherent in their actuality. (The stuff that exists in the cosmos is already strange and extravagant!)

References to nature -- phenomena such as water, light, stars and planets, flora and fauna – are co-mingled with the pervasive, sometimes deadening influences of contemporary culture. The work is designed to perceptually challenge the viewer's expectations, while raising questions about physicality and our ontological moorings.

Living in Los Angeles, a sprawl of glamorous banality, seems to be an advantage to the awareness of changes occurring in our global society. L.A. hangs tenuously on the edge of a continent, a metropolis symbolic around the world of a mythological urge toward paradise. Our fair weather landscape abounds in Eden-inspired gardens, yet we seek escape from real time and space through the powerful distractions of the movie industry and computer simulation technology, Excess, spectacle, and artificiality collide with my longing for a deeper ground of being.

So I go shopping! Looking for unexpected materials, I'm on a kind of up-dated,19th century expedition to explore exotic locals, wonder at diversity, and collect specimens. Back in the studio, I construct works inspired by the directness and simplicity of Minimalism. Humility, humor, and irony seem more appropriate than angst, yet often there is an environmental concern or even apocalyptic understatement.

Submitted by DENK Gallery