Interview: Cara Lynch
Cara Lynch is an artist based in New York and Nashville. Cara works in painting, sculpture, and public art. Working across media, she is currently making (mostly) paintings, weathervanes, windchimes, and suncatchers. These disparate parts of her practice are unified by the inclusion of patterns and fragments that come together to form a whole. Her work is influenced by historic craft processes: theorem painting, stained glass, metalsmithing, mosaic, appliqué, and embroidery. I utilize these methodologies as a way to manifest autonomy and experience visual pleasure. Recent presentations include Clearing the Air at Southampton Arts Center (Southampton, NY) curated by Jay Davis and Rolling, Rolling, Rolling at the LeRoy Neiman Gallery (New York, NY), curated by Nathan Catlin. She is a 2020 graduate of the MFA program at Columbia University and received her BFA from Adelphi University in 2012. In addition to her studio work, she has created many commissioned public projects. In 2016, she installed a permanent glass installation for the NYC MTA. She has also created large public works for Nashville International Airport, NYC Health and Hospitals, NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, and NYC Department of Transportation.
Read our interview with Cara Lynch below!
View of Radiate Positivity, colored vinyl installation in skylight in Nashville International Airport (BNA), 2022
PP: Walk us through a typical day in your studio or generally through your process to make new work.
CL: Every day in my studio is different! I work with many different materials and processes to make my work. Sometimes, these disparate elements come together in one work, and other times, the materials stay separate.
My 2024 resolution was to try to draw every day, so lately, I begin my studio days with that practice while I have coffee in the morning at home. Then, I go to my studio, and start working on whatever the project that day or week might be. Lately, I am making a lot of paintings that involve collaging many different pieces together. I am also making glass and metal works. Mostly, I am making things and cutting them apart, or putting them together to make something new.
Ribcage, stained glass, seashell, steel, 46 x 30 x 6 inches, 2022
Equinox, acrylic on panel, 48 x 36 inches, 2023
PP: What motivates you to make art?
CL: I have always felt the need to make art. I genuinely like making things. I suppose a key part of this urge for me is material curiosity. I love learning more about materials and gaining more knowledge about them through play, experimentation, and talking to others. Conceptually, the things I am most interested in exploring right now are mythologies of the American dream, my sense of agency, and the literary concept of “Pathetic Fallacy.”
PP: What is one goal you are aiming to achieve this year for your art practice?
CL: This year, I am hoping to continue to pursue current bodies of work, and push that work further. I am also hoping to complete at least one public artwork, which has been a part of my practice for the last decade or so.
PP: What are ways you support other artists?
CL: I love visiting friends’ studios and shows- whenever I can. I also run a new editioning program, called Current, at a printshop in the Rockaways, NYC. We just completed our first few editions, and we are looking forward to publishing four or five more projects in 2024. I have always enjoyed working with other artists. This project feels like a way I can support other artists, allowing them to produce something they believe in through an investment of care and time.
PP: Who is a current muse for your practice? Could be anyone fictional or real, dead or alive!
CL: I am currently reading Frankenstein! I think of some of the figurative sculptures I make as Frankenstein’s monster in a way. I am always waiting for them to come alive.
To learn more about Cara Lynch’s work, see her Instagram and Website