#56 Lynn Hynd, Torn Gestures
2 - 21 June
Lynn Hynd was born in Bangor, Wales. She graduated from Fine Art, Painting at the Glasgow School of Art in 2001 and was on the Transmission Committee from 2004 - 2006.
A conversation between Lynn Hynd and Ellie Morgan between the 29th May and 1st June.
Ellie Morgan: It’s exciting to have your new work here for ‘Torn Gestures’. The plaster pieces have required new knowledge of processes and materials. We found that the studio culture in Glasgow was very open and the artists we met were very communicative. Do you feel like Glasgow is particularly conducive to dialogue between artists and sharing skills?
Lynn Hynd: The artistic community in Glasgow is a very supportive environment to be involved with and one that really allows you to take risks and explore new directions in your practice. It is invaluable to be around artists that really give honest critical feedback and support your practice. In making the new pieces the support of my peers was really important, both with practical solutions and with the process of how the work is read as it is the first time I have made work with more sculptural materials like plaster. It was really important that the work didn’t become sculptural but was able to move between the boundaries of two dimensions and three dimensions. It has definitely been really exciting to explore new materials and processes like print with this new body of work as it has allowed me to challenge and explore my interests in a completely new context, allowing new possibilities to emerge that might not have surfaced from the more collaged pieces I have been working on for the last year.
EM: You talk about your work being three-dimensional yet not sculptural and see the plaster works as bridging two and three dimensions through their printed planar surfaces and physicality. Could you explain a bit about the theory and process that led to this exploration of dimensions and perhaps why you are not happy to see them simply as sculptures?
LH: I have always been interested in the problem of the edge as this point which inhabits both the two-dimensional and three-dimensional reading of something. The edge to me is like a line. It is both physical and flat in its reading, just like paint, which holds physicality and body as well as flatness in how it is read within the history of painting. Having studied painting at Glasgow School of Art, I am most defiantly coming to this enquiry from a painting perspective. Even though the new works involve more physical materials, they are still flat and hold a strong relationship to the wall. The wall is such an important dimension and surface within the reading of the work. The wall is the canvas in a way. And through investigating the line and edge, I am interested in how the separation of the line from the ground would allow the line to constitute and articulate the ground rather than the ground preconditioning the drawing / line. It’s an area that does move between the two dimensions but it is so important for me that the works don’t become exclusively become identifiable as objects.
EM: If the edge of the work is a physical manifestation of the line, which is obviously paramount to your work, how does this translate to your new techniques? Printing and photocopying are more removed technologies of line-making than the physical gestures of drawing or tearing, and the plaster shapes are pre-designed, giving these edges a feeling of precision. Do you see this body of work as an opportunity to explore a more concise, refined process?
LH: That is a very relevant observation and one that I am still balancing up in my head as I look at the work in the exhibition. There is something, though, about the process of screen-printing that I have found quite spontaneous and physical. I haven't been constrained by the technical procedure of printmaking but have sought to explore and play with it just like I have done with my mark-making in the studio. I have used both the cut-out stencils and the printed paper in their own right, combining both. Nothing is ever thrown out. But it is very much the tension and friction - a dialogue between this sense of restriction and structure and physicality and openness that is always contained within my work. For me the more physical and spontaneous nature in the new work comes through in making the marks on the screen which were drawn with a water hose. But in making this new work I have found it hard that I am at this stage unable to physically alter the plaster pieces just like I would a cut piece of paper. If only I could now just cut them up!
EM: It is interesting working with someone who has such an intimate knowledge of how an artist-led space works. How does your experience of being involved in Transmission, and now working with OUTPOST compare with other galleries in which you have shown?
LH: Oh, I have had such an amazing time putting together this exhibition. Working with artist-run spaces is always a privilege and something that as an artist you get so much from. The freedom and support I have received just allows you to take risks and really push your ideas forward to a new place, which on some occasions is hard within other gallery contexts. When the pressure, expectation and specific selection of certain works to a degree can affect the decisions you make. But being involved with a space like OUTPOST really gives you a platform in which you’re able to open up new questions even if they are not so solidified, which at any stage within a practice is so important.
EM: That is the correct answer.
