Lynda Lehmann

Abstract, Art, Innovative, Photography

We interviewed Lynda Lehmann, an artist and photographer who lives New York.

Q: What inspires you?

A: Nature in all its forms, inspires me. I’m very drawn toward the close view, and I love to revel in texture, because there are fascinating similarities in texture (and form) at all levels of the universe. I’m moved by a wonderful feeling of harmony and “Oneness” when I can perceive the likenesses of things. I look at texture as “the most enduring and ubiquitous underpinning of form… certainly a calming, meditative and appealing world for both the eye and mind.” (I’m actually quoting myself here, as a request today by a videographer to use these words in his next feature, reminded me that I had spoken them. I believe he saw the quote in the quotes section of the Painter’s Keys site.)

Q: What forms of artwork do you appreciate the most?

A: I appreciate all art, music, and literature. As for my own particular passions, I prefer abstract acrylic painting and photography, to other media.

Q: What mediums do you work with the most, and how would you describe your style of art or photography?

A: My paintings are energetic and active, if not frenetic, reflecting the intricacy and changeability of consciousness, as well as the impermanence of what we call “objective” reality. My work exhibits order within chaos, much as we experience layers of organization within the complexity and disorder of both civilization and the natural world.

While my appreciation for the structures of reality is expressed through the realism of a camera, my paintings are marked by passages of vibrant color, gesture, and rhythm. Realism reveals the universality that can be found within the confines of a single moment that is both temporal and fleeting. FORM, on the other hand, is eternal.

In my painting I prefer the ambiguity, freedom and musicality of abstraction. I love working with bright colors, layering brush strokes on canvas and watching a counterpoint of motion, color and gesture emerge until a new visual experience is born. For me the act of painting is a dance that connects me to the elemental and primordial forces underpinning our shifting and evolving everyday reality.

My photographs are a different story. In my photographic images, I celebrate the “ubiquitous beauties of the world.” I can spend hours on end, photographing nature scenes or close-ups, hoping to capture some of the marvelous beauty that surrounds us. As with painting, I’m always looking for a new visual experience. Being immersed in creative process brings indescribable joy to my life, and lifts me above the problems of every day.

I’ve had the privilege of studying painting with Stan Brodsky, an accomplished New York painter well known for his work. I have shown my art in numerous juried and solo shows in the New York area. If you’d like to read more of my thoughts on art, please visit my blog Peripheral Vision or read my “Words, Not Pictures” Page or my articles, including “Art and Power” (which was published abroad) at Creativity Portal. I am currently selling my work on several sites on the web, and their links are on my above-mentioned pages.

eithiriel @ May 22, 2008