We recently connected with Cara Lynch and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Cara, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

In 2016, I installed a permanent work for the NYC MTA subway station at Ditmas Avenue in Brooklyn. Just a few years earlier (while a senior in undergrad), I had defined this as one of my lifetime career goals as an artist. Many of the artists I admire most have completed a project for MTA Arts and Design, and I was (and still am!) incredibly honored to be included among them.

The project itself helped me to realize that finding a path as an artist (and surviving!) was possible. The commission funds allowed me to get my first real studio in NYC, dedicate time to my practice, purchase art materials, and complete something at a scale I had only dreamed would be possible. Through the process, I learned about time management, fabrication, stained glass, and working with public agencies. I poured myself into researching the household American glass objects that were the inspiration for the patterns I was creating. I made a work that still continues to resonate with me, and hopefully, with others.

It was an incredible opportunity to see an artwork I had started working on at home with a ballpoint pen on ordinary copy paper transform into something so large and permanent. As a New Yorker, it meant a lot to me to make something that would become integrated into the fabric of my city. Working with a professional glass fabricator, Glasmalerei Peters Studios, also began my obsession with a material I still work often with today. The project led me to more seriously consider our relationship to the places we inhabit, their history, and the importance of public art.

Cara, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am an artist working in sculpture, printmaking, painting, and public art. I received my BFA degree from Adelphi University in 2012 and went on to receive my MFA degree from Columbia University in 2020. My work has been featured in exhibitions across the United States and is part of several permanent collections including NYC MTA Arts and Design and NYC Health and Hospitals.

I have had the opportunity to create over fifteen large scale public works throughout my career. My public projects incorporate bright colors and patterns in compositions that overwhelm an entire space. I approach each site as a unique environment. Many of my public works reference a community utilizing a space or it’s history. Research is an important part of my practice, and oftentimes, this will reveal something significant that becomes the focal point of the work.

Recently, I created a temporary work for the Nashville International Airport, “Radiate Positivity,” and a permanent work for NYC Health and Hospitals, “New Light.” I pursued both of these opportunities through open calls that were issued by each respective agency. I also occasionally create site-specific works for corporate clients or private collectors.

This public practice emerged from an interest in exploring the tension between art and craft, public and private space, decoration and excess. The work has relied on pattern, color, and repetition for the last ten years or so, but my reasons for making these installations has continued to evolve. Additionally, I now see these works as an embrace of Radical Joy in response to the precarity and anxiety we face every day.

When in my studio, I spend most of my time making sculptures and paintings.

I am currently working on a series of abstract, brightly-colored, fractured, floral paintings. I think of these as psychological landscapes. They are a parallel to the literary concept of a “pathetic fallacy,” in which an author attributes human emotions to inanimate things. The paintings combine renderings of flowers, shapes I draw with no direct reference, and echoes of both of these. I am particularly interested in creating visual exaggerations, reflections, or reverberations within each work.

My sculptures generally reference the figure and interact with their environment. Right now, I am making lamps, wind chimes, and weathervanes. I work with these utilitarian forms because I believe they are the forms of contemporary myths.

These distinct parts of my practice enrich and inform one another. They are a way to explore my diverse interests and serve as a bridge between my inner and outer worlds.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I have a desire to make things. I make things as a way to think about the world, the human condition, and as an expression of agency.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Every day is different. I get to do what I love! There is no clear “path” for artists or creatives. I think recognizing the opportunity in this has been very rewarding.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.CaraLynchStudio.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cara_lynch_/?hl=en