Wayfaring

City rain breathing
Radiation from the storm clouds
As tar black feather balls
Disguise the avenue.

Ghosts in the metropolis
Leer from empty buildings
Poisonous tomb stones
Rising in the shadows

Devout of humanity
Lifeless and forsaken
On what journey
The victim returns?




ADMONITIO

You are the genesis of today
The cancers of a desperate heart
etched in the loss of hope.

Vision doubled, fractured
fragments give warning.
Blood rushes in a sojourn.

Following the Daughters of Zion
adorned in self-alienation
to a future world, without history.




AXIS

The passion shall escape
While the past,
Flickering hungry
Is Bleached invisible.

You gaze at
The unfeigned light.
Walking out determined
From the world.

Knowing how it feels
To be broken
And have a black hole
On your time-line.




Bio: Carl Scharwath, has appeared globally with 80+ journals selecting his poetry, short stories, essays or art photography. He won the National Poetry Contest award for Writers One Flight Up. His first poetry book is 'Journey To Become Forgotten' (Kind of a Hurricane Press). Carl is also a dedicated runner.

AHC: Can you tell us a bit about your process, themes & inspirations?

Laura: These are uncertain times and my work meticulously explores the mechanisms and peculiarities of human cognition in response to the uncertainty we find in the intersecting spheres of the organic and manmade. I build custom furniture and objects and utilize light and video to create installations ergonomically designed to play directly upon the expectations of the viewer and to create an immersive experience of questioning, empathy and heightened awareness. I’m inspired by the uncertainties one encounters in nature, science and the domestic, and the human response.

My process?

I’m very empirical, but also improvisational. The process is a little like gardening- planning is involved, but once I have some elements together I have to allow the process to develop as it will, given the material attributes, etc. I then decide which elements are the right ones to use, and I have to make accommodations as I see fit.

There is an expansive sense of mystery that is cultivated in the work. Part of that cultivation is being very meticulous, but I don’t want to control it so much that it becomes dead- for example, trying to juxtapose more controlled elements like boxes with elements that are not possible to control such as animals. When I work with animals for my video installations I have an idea of what I want the animals to do, but they always surprise me with what they actually do. It is never exactly what I planned for, but it ends up being better because it is what comes naturally to the animal, its intrinsic and not possible for me to script. It is the same method that I use with my object making. Instead of creating odd looking objects I choose to cast from particularly visually striking botanical source materials, because nothing anyone could come up with could ever be as idiomatic or intricate.   I do ascribe to the old saying that truth is stranger than fiction.

I then mutate and amplify those intricacies. These forms have their own logic which I transpose and reapply into a different context, much the same way scientists find and develop new drugs. I let the process direct itself, but I’m a ruthless editor and I don’t let the project get away from me.  I like to place these elements out of context into a stripped down built environment, so there is wide opportunity for interpretation. This, along with the stillness of the space, may cause the viewer to sense that they are witness to a purposeful process at play. I am interested in the cool tension that results from the efforts of the mind to create
connections between disparate elements before they are understood. Scientists refer to these cognitive phenomena as apophenia.




​AHC: What first drew you to art? Was there a specific moment in your life or turning point where it became clear to you that you were being called to create?

Laura: It was more like a series of moments that came together to convince me over time. There was the time that I discovered lighting and mood at age 4 in the grocery store. One aisle, which happened to be the peanut butter and jelly aisle, had its lights go out. While the rest of the store was lit with the usual florescent lighting, this aisle was illuminated only by whatever light came through the jars of jelly from the aisle next to it. The various jellies were glowing, punctuated by the dark opaque peanut
butter jars, and the area had such an exciting and mysterious feeling. I remember running back and forth within it, so enveloped in the experience.

A few years later I realized that I liked creating altered situations of this kind for others. My cousin had the coolest Star Wars toys that would light up, and at family gatherings I would create what I called haunted houses in his room.  I would lead various family members through on a planned path in the darkened room from one “display” to another and see how they would react. I remember for a period of time feeling that this was extremely important to complete when I was over at their house, even
though there was no logical reason that it would be necessary. This is the type of determination it takes to be an artist.




AHC: Could you talk about your notion of peripheral objects, that is all of the things that exist at the corners of our perception, that make up our world & experience as much as the main events or attractors, but that we seem to pay less attention to?

Laura: I’m very interested in the choices we make about what is considered peripheral and what is the main focal point, the hierarchies we assign. In my installations I like to raise questions about what the focal point actually is, and whether the viewer can trust their perception.

For example, my installation Evident (2009, New American Art Union) consisted of 3 objects in a darkened room, giving the impression that the viewer is to move from focusing on one object to the next, however video footage of intermittent insect activity projected from a box on the floor sprayed throughout the gallery unpredictably. At any point a viewer could catch a momentary glimpse of an insect out of the corner of their eye, but by the time they could focus their attention to that spot the insect would have moved on.

​

Evident, installed in 2009 at New American Art Union, Portland, OR


For my work that involves reflective surfaces like Ingress, which I created for the show Transparencies at the Des Moines Art Center, the mirror-like surfaces both expand and contract the field of vision. Even though the tables are large the reflective surfaces cause the space inside the cases to seem much larger. The awareness of contracting and expanding space, and of the inhabitants of the space, is central to what I do. It is architectural, revealing the mazes we become accustomed to as well as
those we are less familiar with or had been unaware of.

​

Ingress, in the group show Transparencies at the Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines IA (2013.)



AHC: Immersion in the side car of experience is the feeling I get from exploring your work, that quick passing detail that happens faster than one can cognitively digest or process, in exploring these aspects do you find yourself often paying special attention throughout the day to the peripheral events of life around you?

Laura: Often things that may seem mundane or even flawed to most tend to stop me in my tracks, then upon closer examination I may see something strikingly strange or find a sublime thread running through it. I like to create situations for the viewer to “notice” something in this way. Through use of context in architectural or display methods I highlight some kind of peculiarity or intrinsic quality that appears to have its own logic.

Take, for instance, bees. They are everywhere but we don’t pay very close attention to them, despite how crucial they are to our food supply. They have such a purposeful way of moving, even though at first glance they seem erratic. When we take the time to really focus on them, patterns of behavior start to emerge and even those are barely understood.

My most recent project, Alvarium, which I installed at the University of Oregon in Portland, involved honey bee footage projected within a hive-like form suspended from beams that I designed with the building's architecture in mind.  

Alvarium, installed at University of Oregon, Portland campus.



AHC: Who are some of your artistic influences? Is there anyone outside of the art world who has had a huge impact on your work, writers, filmmakers, philosophers etc?

Laura: A couple of my biggest artistic influences are Eva Hesse and Donald Judd. Often, I contrast organic entropic, surreal elements with a more empirical and geometric approach so these seemingly different influences complement each other. Overall, I cultivate a certain very expansive, mysterious mood through light and structure with a dry sense of humor so others like Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Irwin, Mies van der Rohe, Beethoven, Alfred Hitchcock and Giorgio de Chirico have caught my attention at formative moments. Still it is all filtered through life so the garden and interesting interior spaces capture my attention and endlessly inspire me.




AHC: What is the first work of art you encountered that took your breath away?

Laura: When I was in high school I first encountered a book of the Helga Paintings by Andrew Wyeth, and was captivated by the mysterious, otherworldly yet intimate mood of the paintings. I was drawn to the sense of composition and attention to certain details, such as the light catching a stray strand of hair. There was a feeling in the paintings of some kind of undercurrent that was fundamentally important, but not explained. Not all details are provided, so the viewer had to draw their own conclusions.




AHC: Do you have any upcoming exhibits or new projects you'd like to tell people about?

Laura: Currently I have work in a group show “The Color of Memory” at Jeffrey Thomas Fine Art in Portland. The piece is called Spektive (specimen V017) and involves a cast organic form or “specimen” resting on a small minimalist shelf designed to capture, reflect and hold light. The shelf has a mirrored layer that reflects light up to the organic form, and the organic form is cast out of a clear resin that holds light to the point of appearing to glow. The piece is really using the gallery lighting to create more light within itself.
​

Spektive (specimen V017), completed in 2016, up currently at Jeffrey Thomas Fine Art in the group show "Color of Memory".


I’m also forming plans to show more expanded versions of Alvarium that address space even more, in addition to a desert piece in California.



To find more work by Laura Fritz and for further information visit her website at www.laurafritz.net

Grandmother
 
She sits on the porch
on a creaky stool
 
leaning on the red armrest
looking out at the world passing by
 
her eyes never saw much
ears failing now
 
but in the bicycle bell of the newspaper boy
she hears how the world fares
 
the sun seeping through the trees
shows her lives no one ever sees
 
in the void of the house
she lives a hundred lives
 
past converses fluently with an uncertain future
leaving the present a muddled mess.


​

Secret Worlds Are Hidden In Such Places
 
in the fading coolness of the other side of the pillow
 
in the small of a woman's back, under the golden peach fuzz there
 
in the syntax of an almanac whose culture of ziggurat has perished
 
under something heavy falling right before the impact crushes it
 
in the sinking Atlantis of your eye after I tell you of the lost continent
 
in silver itself—between the ridges of the most base coin's edges
 
between a hair and a hairsbreadth and a moment's acquiescence
 
between the spinning blades of the engine fans on any highway
 
between sternum and backbone the unchartable mesa
 
between two sand grains an infinite cornucopia
 
the electric world hidden there between membranes
 
I lean down let my ear hover over a pool of quiet water






Tragicomedy

I don't need any manna I just need some sleep.
 
I probably lose things in the bargains of necessities
 
or niceties, which I think are like hawks hovering above highways.
 
Mainly, I want to show you my monsters and still have a decent
 
afternoon.  This is not possible, especially when the hydra
 
asks nine questions of you, and your answers are decapitated.
 
I spit no venom—my greatest sin is making family of people
 
who I never asked if I could do so. Then, I sit at the keyboard
 
cajoling a universe in me, like a lawyer making a plea to a higher power.
 
Just because you didn't know any better or you meant better
 
doesn't mean you didn't foul up something as simple as ice-cream.





Lure
 
I was always afraid as a boy
That when my father cast out
 
He would tear out my eye with the hook.
As an adult, I thought of this
 
In some Freudian way—some fear I had
Of him hurting me or going away
 
Or I was bad at fishing if he ever hooked
Me. That is what I thought. It would have been,
 
Of course, my fault.
Those hooks we all have in our lips
 
Twine dangling from them in life,
Those stories obvious to anyone who kisses us.
 
Now I know new secrets--
My father never needed to rend my eyes.
 
I was the fish he longed for—the self
Of casting—the rip and rod and reel
 
And abandon—how he thrust into my mother
With love or not—how he swam away
 
From us and her through weed and keg.
And I know now that those hooks were for
 
Ripping out my eyes; they were for
Making new lures, new orbs
 
For this brazen flotilla I ride towards
His hospital canoe.
 
I was always afraid as a boy
That when my father cast out
 
He was never coming back home,
And he didn’t.
 
And I didn’t.
And West Point Lake dried up.
 





Magnolia Climbing
 
You say pendulum
I say leaf on end of spider-spit sways
You say compass
I say pine needle in puddle near iron ore
You say astrolabe and sextant
I say circle of pear’s rump on triangular shale shard
You say padlock
I say the lips of the chameleon
You say computer
I say beehive
You say combustion engine
I say child on sugar
You say why
And I see a because in nothing special
You say mandala
I say “duh”
You say electric guitar
I say quasar harp
We tend to mistranslate when we argue a lot
Or argue over mistranslations like ergot
Festering about to cause mass hallucinations
You say skyscraper
I say ziggurat
You say catapult
I say crackerjack
Your whole life
You tried to break out of the snowglobe
(Guess what--the confetti is all over us)
My whole life
I burrowed under the snow
Looking for utopia
Who knew you would show up
At the same time as me
With a pinecomb of history
As I held a ruddy pear of poetry
We immediately kissed
And then went running across the planet
Looking for good climbing-trees


​

The Sun Goddess of Instagram
 
Who would goad us before seeking death
in the everyday world misspent
miracles occur for the outcasts
leading homeless lives in cities.
There street people dance at the feet
of Instagram beauties, photo-bombing them
for the rebirth of genuine thrills
beyond their shopping cart booty.
Do you hear them shouting for you
at Venice Beach every day?
They seek your money, your flesh
to regale as Rodeo Drive eye candy,
before extending needy palms
blistered by maritime misadventure
& hand jobs in underground parking garages
(where flotsam from sexual detritus
is pooling grime with quickie-seed)
after you sunbathe all but nude
boobs-up, wearing bikini & shades
on a beachside patio lounge chair.
They would goad you to show yourself
fully, for a surreptitious flash- photo,
but you're skilled at disappearing
as the sun fades across blue horizons,
leaving peeping orbs to shadow sight
for a long nocturne of eyes wide shut..





The Divine Vision
 
Just the way the light hits you
in insuperable being's fact
from another desolate photo session
the wrath of Caligua's vibes befoul
in half-hearted pictorial smiles
for psychic chasms
our egos inhabit slyly
 
Into what is appropriate
to his dying ocular mega-lens
absorbing my visual content
& leave marred edges intact
whistling as he adjusts shutter speed
I see Matthew Brady remnants
scowling through temporal diffractions
my ferrous features frizz-out
into Poe's dollar store daguerreotype
dragging all the scurrying ions
 
Into my pixel-pout
where nothing matters
but the disappearing image
of "Self"
scanned by throwback technology
into the Cyclops' original eye
first blinded
by caveman god 


​

Faith and the Devil Installation (Big Gal Faith)


AHC: What first drew you to art? Was there a specific moment in your life or turning point where it became clear to you that you were being called to create?

​Lesley: When I was 11, 12, 13 etc., I learned how to weave, hook rugs, and make prints from great Aunt Peggy and great Aunt Dorothy, who lived in Gloucester Mass. I loved working with my hand, and I also loved learning and reading. As a child I would go to the library and take out 5 books every week.

In college, I was an English major. When I went back to get a Master’s degree –I got an MAT in teaching, so I could make a living- and this degree was in teaching art. I thought that would be my life--Teaching and teaching art. After teaching high school art for a few years, I felt this urge rise up my 28 yr. old spine. A strong electrical ethical urge. It seemed to point me in the direction of art so I went to grad school at MICA, then moved to NYC.

​Thus, bit by bit the call to make art interspersed with the doubt to make art, and bit by bit I somehow became confident in the call.

Divide Light Opera


AHC: One of your pieces, which I love, is called "Dada Poem Wedding Dress" and I sense that Dadaism has had some strong influence on your work, could you talk some about that? Who are some of your other influences?

​Lesley: In the Dada Poem Wedding Dress, I was inspired by the “Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors even “by Marcel Duchamp.  I wanted to do a performance piece that addressed this rather misogynistic title.

Dada Poem Wedding Dress


In the performance, 4 women gently ripped off a dress with the language of Emily Dickinson on it to reveal a confident standing woman totally painted with the language of the poem “The Soul has Bandaged Moments.” We women midwifed this image of ourselves revealing ourselves as women of strong language and image.
​

Sister Gertrude Morgan Installation 


AHC: You work with a lot of different mediums, clothing, puppets, sculptures, performance as well as photography and drawing, the style & detail of each one of these being so incredibly unique, do you prefer one of these mediums or approaches over another? As you're working out an idea do you know ahead of time which medium it will work best in?

​Lesley: I love the tactility, actual and metaphorical in different materials.  I don’t know,.. it seems things just emerge from the mind for me. Ideas come and resolve when I am on the subway, when I am watching Game of Thrones on tv, when I am reading.

Dog #2 (The Beast) Puppet


AHC: Do you have any upcoming exhibits or projects you'd like to tell people about?

Lesley: I am happy to say that Tandem Press and I are doing 9 pieces: Editions of 2 sculptural puppet/dolls, 3 etchings, and 5 photo-based prints. I am doing a project in Rajasthan, India in February 2107, a project and exhibition in Detroit in April 2017, and an exhibition in Colorado in 2018.



​To find more of Lesley's work and for further information visit her website at www.lesleydill.net

AHC: Can you tell us a bit about your process, themes & inspirations?

​Lisa: Like any artist who has been practicing a long time, my process, themes and inspirations have changed over the years.

For the past ten years my process involves using images from my immediate environment as well as those conjured from my imagination. Ranging in scale from twelve inches to twelve feet, I always paint in oil on a smooth surface, either on canvas or panel or canvas stretched over panel. I include both representational imagery as well as abstraction.

Reoccurring themes in my work are that of the natural environment and the human-built world, their collision and ultimate integration, if only by default. Rather than presenting a factual narrative, my work uses metaphor, perception, and imagination to merge my experiences of these worlds into a new, post-urban reality.
 

Dark Star 2014-15
oil on canvas over panel
60 x 84 inches


My inspirations are many, from simple things in nature like a pinecone, to something more impactful like the landscape of the Salton Sea. I am drawn to images of renewal and beauty that might emerge from an imagined post-apocalyptic world. It’s the combination of natural beauty and evidence of human disruption that peeks my imagination.

​I have found a way to accommodate, meld, and come to terms with these disparate worlds. My work consolidates and then describes the role that memory and what I call slow time play in my emotional responses to my physical environment.
 

Caput Mortuum 2015
oil and spray paint on canvas over panel
40 x 42 inches


AHC: What first drew you to art? Was there a specific moment in your life or turning point where it became clear to you that you were being called to create?

Lisa: Having been a very obsessive child, I came to art quite young, maybe two or three years old, so I’m told. My earliest memories at about age five, were of laying under the dining room table and chairs and creating intense drawings of animals, cars, roads, trees and houses, in pencil, on the underside of the furniture. I was also fond of collecting categories of images from magazines, like birds or eyes, carefully cutting around each image and gluing them down on construction paper in straight rows. I was always busy but hadn’t yet called myself an artist.
 

Borderland
oil on canvas over panel
60 x 144 2015


When I was ten, I saw a reproduction of Salvador Dali’s painting, The Persistence of Memory, in a library book at school. I’d never seen anything like it and remember thinking to myself, “Wow there are people out there who think like that?” In an attempt to make similar work, I did a bunch of drawings of melting clocks and put them in cheap, little gold frames and hung them on the wall in my room. It was at that point I called myself an artist even though I’m not sure I knew what that really meant. No one in my family or neighborhood were artists.
 

The Mire of Epiphany 2013
oil on panel
48 x 60 inches


AHC: Who are some of your influences?

​Lisa: There are so many! I would have to say some of the surrealist painters, such as Max Ernst or Salvador Dali, the DADA artists Duchamp and Picabia, the Russian Constructivists, the Bauhaus theater of Oskar Schlemmer, the films of Werner Herzog and Andrei Tarkovsky, philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, science fiction writers Phillip K. Dick and James Howard Kunstler, more contemporary artists like, Susan Rothenberg, Philip Guston, Llyn Foulkes, Kristin Calabrese, Robert Gober, Jenny Saville, Albert Oehlen, Peter Doig, Marlene Dumas, Kelly McLane, Henry Taylor, Jon Rafman, and on and on.

Portentous Rhapsody 2013
oil on panel
20 x 48 inches

​
AHC: Where do you find the inspiration for your pieces?  

​Lisa: Inspiration is a curious thing and I rarely think in terms of inspiration. For me it’s more like just being in the world with the eyes and mind of a keen observer. One of the tools I use to observe the world is my iPhone. Though I would never consider myself a photographer, I take a lot of photos of things I see in my immediate environment in downtown LA, like graffiti, concrete, asphalt, architectural detail and homeless encampments. That said, I also have a direct experience of nature by spending time in Griffith Park, at the L.A. River and in the Angeles National Forest, which is only about a 45 minutes drive. 

​Esperanza Valley 2015
oil on canvas over panel
60 x 72 inches


In the1990s and 2000s, I traveled extensively and travel is always a great resource—new languages, cultures, landscapes, buildings, food. etc. I would love to go to Iceland one day.
​

Drowning Out All Birdsong 2013
oil on canvas over panel
65 x 84.5 inches


AHC: Do you have any upcoming exhibits or new projects you'd like to tell people about?

Lisa: This October my work will be included in a group exhibition at the Santa Monica College Barrett Gallery titled Collaborations, curated by Kirk Pedersen, publisher at ZERO+ Publishing. This exhibition includes work by all the artists who have had monograph books published by ZERO+ and I’m very proud to be part of this group.

In January, 2017 I will have a small exhibition of small paintings at CB1 Gallery, who represents my work in Los Angeles.

​Lastly, in February at the College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California there will be a small survey exhibition of my paintings that spans the past five years.
 

We Don’t Kare 2015
oil on canvas over panel
48 x 60 inches


Photo of Lisa Adams 
photo credit: ©2016 Jayme Odgers

All other images © Lisa Adams

Lisa Adams is represented by CB1 Gallery in Los Angeles 

To see more of Lisa's work and for further information visit her website at http://www.lisamakesart.com

Yachts
 
On the edge of Del Monte Beach,
just beyond crowded yacht harbor,
an elderly woman, homeless,
crawls from a pup tent.
She wears ragged red leggings,
dirty sweatshirt, lumpy adult diaper,
looks hopefully at passing walkers.
 
Perhaps some kind Samaritan
will take pity, improve her day
with a greeting, hot coffee,
a generous cash handout.
Most pass with averted eyes,
pretend she is an invisible monster.
 
On their fancy schooners and sailboats,
the affluent rise and shine,
toast bracing morning air
with eggs benedict served on deck,
crystal goblets filled with mimosas.
 

 



​Morning Messiah
 
He spends cold nights
crumpled against damp sand,
pillows his head
upon rotting driftwood.
 
When his demons command,
he shuffles inland to Custom House Plaza.
Curses invisible, buzzing tormentors.
With outstretched arms, yells obscenities,
terrifies tourists.
 
Eventually, a cop will come,
warn him to quiet down
unless he wants another
seventy-two-hour involuntary hold
in the psych ward.
 
Sitting on a public bench,
he nurses grievances,
rests between outbursts,
unable to escape accusing voices
inside his own head.

 



Purple Haze
 
Fundraisers miss the irony
of a Jimi Hendrix tribute concert
organized to solicit donations
for the local recovery center.
 
Addicts, alcoholics, aging hippies
reminisce about Winterland, The Fillmore,
purchase tickets to witness
a Canadian guitarist
channeling the iconic rock star,
dead of a heroin overdose at 27.
 
Tattooed, stoned and sober fans,
shout out favorite album cuts,
re-experience the Monterey Pop Festival,
mesmerizing Stratocaster ignition,
that legendary scorched spot
on immortal stage.
 
 

 

Retail Religion
 
The flea market tienda entices consumers.
Flimsy shelves display eclectic bling:
plastic Sparkle Plenty unicorns,
Virgin of Guadalupe,
crucified Jesus on a cross
in varied dimensions.
Smurfs and Barbie cohabitate
with Little Red Riding Hood,
green army men,
all twelve apostles.
Young and old
comb through merchandise.
Discounted relics beg to be purchased,
taken home to be adorn one’s personal altar.
Sacred icons --fifty per cent off.
Saintly figurines promise spiritual succor.
 




Golden Gate Windmill 

Silhouetted against curdled sky,
battered rotor arms frozen,
the windmill has been transplanted
to San Francisco from Holland.
It attracts Golden Gate homeless,
our society’s Frankenstein’s monster.
 
A diaspora of unwanted humans
terrify and haunt us.
The townspeople are subtle –
no pitchforks or torches,
only demands that the destitute
be removed from streets, beaches, sidewalks.
 
Unmedicated messiahs rave
to crows and passing joggers,
seek refuge with dispossessed creatures
among dunes, under bushes.



​

AHC: Can you tell us a bit about your process, themes & inspirations?

Lyndi: Currently I’m fascinated with the unseen, the unpresentable, idea around transcendence and altered states. I guess this stems from an interest in the metaphysical.  It’s about a feeling of knowing something is there but not being able to see it. I’m fascinated with what we know about the universe and how scientists come to the conclusion they do.  The data collected from far off galaxies’ by radio and satellite telescopes always seems so unclear and blurry like code really.  And then the images that they release are so grand and awe inspiring. Sometimes I wonder how much those images have been manipulated.  

Also the idea of apperception and how we interpret what we see though our own filters. My process usually begins with reading books on science and at times philosophy.  As I’m reading I often look up visual references’ to what I’m reading about.  It could be a scientist theory of expansion or a microscopic image of a cell.  The works evolve from that space.  

I love visiting science museums for inspiration.  I recently had access to all the image data captured by the UCT Engineering department where they photographed various microscopic crystals.  This inspired some of my recent work.  In terms of my process, I have been working with a laser machine for a few years and I loved the unexpected results when things went up in flames. Surrendering control with no expected out come was good for me.  

Now I’m back to making with my own hands in a series of woven works and hand cut collages, which is a very different process, more meditative, and every row or piece is considered.  I think my process has always been about accumulation. At the moment is the accumulation of thousands of individually hand cut pieces of paper to create a collage or the accumulation of rows and rows of rope in a woven work. 
​

159/295


AHC: What first drew you to art? Was there a specific moment in your life or turning point where it became clear to you that you were being called to create?

Lyndi: I was always creative as a child and I remember at age 7 we had a school art competition.  I remember really wanting to win it and I knew who all my competitors were in the class. It was the one subject at school that I felt confident about. Although the idea of becoming an artist was something that only came much later after my undergraduate degree.  I didn’t grow up in an environment that held an appreciation for art so I never really thought of it as a career option. 
​

Fortunes And Fortunes
320 x 40 x 320 mm. Lottery paper. 2008


AHC: The caption on your piece 'Hand dyed vilene' reads:  'The person you see physically is the tip of the iceberg' I love this line, I also think it's becoming increasingly  harder for us to see beyond the surface of people, places & events these days. What are your thoughts about this? 

Lyndi: Yes that piece is actually inspired by a quote by the cellist Yo Yo Ma.  I’ve had this post card from a science museum in Paris up on my mood board for ages. It’s of an iceberg where the majority of the ice is concealed beneath water.  

Chicken-Rat
500 x 900 x 200 mm. Mixed media. 2003

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AHC: Art is a powerful reminder that things are complicated, that appearances and trite definitions simply leave too much out. Your work currently is exploring the role of chance in our lives, the fragility of our existence and increasingly, I would imagine, of the world around us. Do you think that art can serve as a catalyst for our unconscious? That it can put before us what we forget or all too easily try to avoid? That it complicates us?

Lyndi: In the early stage of making the series of work on the Helderberg plane crash I often didn’t make reference to the crash, as it was a wound I didn’t want to reveal too much about.  But strangely enough there were people who could just feel that the work was about loss. Often these people were experiencing their own loss and through seeing some of my works were able to access their pain.  So yes I think art can certainly serve as a catalyst to the unconscious. 

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AHC: Who are some of your artistic influences? Is there anyone outside of the art world who has had a huge impact on your work, writers, filmmakers, philosophers etc? 

Lyndi: One of my favorite books is The Sublime a series of essays by various writers on artists. Also Networks by Bang Larsen
Director David Lynch has been a huge inspiration. As a teenager I watched the “Twin peaks” series but later on I discovered that he is a huge advocate for transcendental meditation, which has been a source of interest in my work.

I love the work of Director Terrence Malick (Tree of life and recently Knight of cups). I sometimes listen to lectures on the great philosophers as audio book while I’m working.  I have made reference to Sartre “Being and nothingness” and Martin Heidegger. I’m currently reading Bill Bryson “History of everything” which is a starting point and then when I discover something really interesting I will read further on that subject. 

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Distorted View The Sun Newspaper
80 x 101 cm. Newspaper. 2010


AHC: What is the first work of art you encountered that took your breath away?

Lyndi: I’m not sure if this was the first one but I remember seeing my very first Van Gogh at the Yale University Gallery, it’s the work titled “ The night café”.  I was moved to tears.  It was such an emotional piece for me and yet I had seen it numerous times in books with little impact as a student but somehow seeing the painting in the flesh really made a huge impact on me. 

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AHC: Do you have any upcoming exhibits or new projects you'd like to tell people about?

Lyndi: Yes I have a solo show At Circa Gallery Everard Read in JHB.  The show runs from the 1 September until the 28th September

Next year I will have a solo show with M Contemporary in Sydney at the end of February 2017. 


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