BILL LYNCH – DRAWINGS & PAINTINGS
2017-12-25Painting onto pieces of salvaged scrap wood (sometimes on both sides), Lynch depicted birds, animals, blossoming branches, waterfalls, Chinese vases, statuettes and landscapes. The artist’s loaded, seemingly spontaneous brushstrokes betray his investment in Chinese and Japanese painting but also evoke his American roots. His gestures combine a dry lambent brush and thick pasty paint, which confidently flows as Lynch is evidently caught up in the passion of depicting his visions. The moiré woodgrain on the rough boards are often absorbed into his compositions, becoming a still body of water or suggesting a moving sky. Knots and grain in the wood seem to inspire the superimposition of moons, mushrooms, flowers or vessels.
Lynch excelled not only at painting, but also in drawings that will be presented alongside each other in this exhibition at The Approach. Small studies in Conté pencil on paper of nesting and flying birds, a pair of hands at a piano, trees and wildflowers emphasise the great tenderness and sensitivity with which Lynch treated his beloved subject matter.
Opposite – No title, n.d.
Exhibition runs from January 7th – February 25th, 2018
The Approach
1st Floor, 47 Approach Road
Bethnal Green
E2 9LY London
