Cara Lynch is an artist working in Nashville and New York. Lynch received her MFA from Columbia University in 2020, and her BFA from Adelphi University in 2012. She is currently making suncatchers, weathervanes, and wind chimes in the form of the human figure. Recent exhibitions include Rolling, Rolling, Rolling, curated by Nathan Catlin at the LeRoy Neiman Gallery, New York, and Clearing the Air, curated by Jay Davis at Southampton Arts Center.
In addition to her studio work, she also creates large-scale murals and public artworks that incorporate color and pattern in joyful compositions. Lynch has created permanent public works for the NYC MTA and NYC Health and Hospitals. She has also been commissioned by Nashville International Airport, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, NYC Parks and Recreation, and NYC Department of Transportation.

Studio Statement:

A “Pathetic Fallacy” is a literary term that describes the attribution of human feeling and emotion to inanimate things. It is a projection of human feeling or experience on to objects. (The dancing flowers, a violent storm, and the weeping rain are examples.) My recent work is a response to and reimagining of this phrase as I investigate my own sense of autonomy and ability to act. I create sculptures that explore agency, emotion, melodrama, abstraction, and the body through their interaction with natural elements including sunlight and flowers.

While the human figure might not be immediately apparent in all of my work, it is always in consideration. I am a bit like Frankenstein, waiting for the sculptures that I make to come alive in some way. The bodies that I make are vases and suncatchers. They are aspirational objects, although, like life, they are sometimes precarious, desperate, or delicate. The components become activated through introduction of a “live” element.

Each work is informed by a specific emotional state. Their physical relationship to the body is essential to understanding the work. I incorporate craft processes and vernacular methods of making as further exploration of agency and an expression of autonomy.

Public Art Statement:

I have been creating public artworks for over ten years. My murals and site-specific installations incorporate bright color and pattern in compositions that completely transform our public spaces. My work reflects on the concept of Radical Joy. My immediate goal is to offer a sense of happiness through color, geometry, and embellishment. I enhance environments and rejuvenate spaces, interrupting everyday life with moments of visual delight.

I am particularly interested in spaces of transportation or transit, in between one place or another. I think a lot about how art can exist in these spaces, impacting visitors who have time to spend in the site and those who also experience the work in a fleeting moment.