cay lynch

Life is complicated…..surround yourself with things that make you smile.

I grew up in the Minneapolis area and attended the University of Minnesota receiving a business degree from the Carlson School of Management. I proceeded to have a corporate career working for IBM, Merrill Lynch and a dealership in the corporate interiors industry. While not a typical artist’s background, I have explored art as an avocation for many years. I have taken classes over the years from the Minnetonka Center for the Arts in glass fusing, etching, photography, jewelry, pottery and of course, painting. I left the corporate world in 2001 and started a photography business specializing in black and white portraits of children. Interestingly, I did not discover oil painting until my forties and of the art forms that I have explored, it is the one that truly captivates me. I love the process of painting, the colors, the blending, the layering, the slippery nature of the oils. I currently am inspired by the works of Joan Mitchell and Richard Diebenkorn.

I paint in layers. I usually start with a thumbnail sketch. I paint the first layer which is loose and spontaneous, the focus being on color rather than form. I then proceed to the actual image that I am trying to represent. This becomes a push and pull exercise, trying to let go enough to trust the brush, to allow the beautiful accidents to occur without thought getting in the way. My goal is to have a subject that is recognizable in form, but still very abstract and fluid. I add layers of paint, scratch the surface, subtract entire areas and usually finger paint at some point until the image feels complete.

I hope you enjoy the end result. I hope it makes you smile.