Tayloe Piggott Gallery is pleased to present “river tugs,” an exhibition featuring the recent paintings of New York-based artist Kathryn Lynch. The works will be on view from December 16thth, 2011 through February 7th, 2012. On Friday, December 16th, from 5 to 8 p.m., Tayloe Piggott Gallery will hold a festive opening reception for Lynch’s exhibition. The public is welcome to enjoy drinks and hors d’oeuvres while mingling amongst the incredible new works of Kathryn’s first solo show at the Tayloe Piggott Gallery. Fellow artist, Nicole Charbonnet, will simultaneously hold her third solo show at the gallery resulting in a wonderful array of paintings in the gallery.
Kathryn Lynch paints her surroundings. For her the buildings, streets and traffic aren't just architecture and byways but they are symbols for the lives we live in an oh-so chaotic world. Lynch’s recent view of boats, tugs and the river are images of things we all know and recognize. Her themes are expressed by means of a palette that is masterfully warm and tonal; each is the color of seasons - gray and green - and times of day - orange and blue. The paintings contain the symbols of the ongoing solitary traveler in each of us. Lynch’s paintings describe the storms we confront, the wind and rain that push against us and the sun that finally shines. Each day and each episode is represented to us by her imaginative play of these toylike boats upon the water.
Lynch’s boats are idiosyncratic in shape and character. Each is a mute but emotive actor. Their naïve engineering does not belie her feelings for these quirky inventions; in fact, her ships are the children of a marriage between observation and interjection. For Lynch they signify more than a vessel but a state of mind: happy, sad, glad, mad, funny, lost all appearing very determined in their self-expression. Physically they are wide-bottomed, oblong, irregularly built shapes without much consideration to the physics of what makes a boat float. They are generally portrayed in profile so we only see one side of their nature, but we see enough and sense enough to portend their story.
With their minimal settings and simplified surroundings, the viewer is made very aware of a subtle balance between the abstract weight of paint, color and form and the suggested representational fragments of Lynch’s locations. Sometimes the river is a kind of mysterious shroud in which these boats move in and out; at other moments it is simply a physical place where we see a meeting of reflective light and color from the surrounding atmosphere. Lynch edits out much, details are gone and only the most salient qualities of paint and drawing remain. Yes, they seem childlike as rendered, but their presence foster little dramas that resonate with great power and meaning.
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