James Lynch – audio feature
JAMES LYNCH The Inhabited Landscape
20 October – 12 November 2011
Jonathan Cooper, Park Walk Gallery, 20 Park Walk, London, SW10 0AQ
‘The Inhabited Landscape,’ is a new exhibition of twelve egg tempera landscapes and animal paintings by James Lynch – his first solo exhibition since 2006.
Five years ago, MLCM met up with James Lynch at his Somerset studio to hear about his work, his use of egg tempera, and how the surrounding countryside fires his imagination.
The feature we produced was broadcast by Irish radio (and via the now defunct Farm Radio website), and we’ve have resurrected it here:
In addition, the Park Walk Gallery has included a film by Jess Phillimore showing James at work in his studio, as well as indulging his passion for hang gliding.
See more details about the artist and his exhibition at The Park Walk Gallery website.
Jonathan Cooper Park Walk Gallery is pleased to announce ‘The Inhabited Landscape,’ a new exhibition of twelve egg tempera landscapes and animal paintings by James Lynch, in his first solo exhibition since 2006.
James Lynch is known for his paintings that capture the atmosopheric weather over the English landscape, in the Romantic tradition.
In this new collection, Lynch has depicted the Somerset and Wiltshire countryside from a distinct aerial perspective, inspired by years of soaring the skies with his paraglider.
Many of the paintings are pure dramatic panoramas drenched in light, whilst other aerial views provide the backdrop for his birds and animals, which fill the foreground and bring a playful naivety and narrative to the landscapes.
‘‘I’ve always been interested in the skies and weather, ever since I was a child. Now I often find myself souring with the swallows and birds, which fly alongside me, chasing the insects swept up in the thermals. ”
There are impressive works on a grand scale in which the viewer is up in the air with kites and swallows, painted larger-than-life, looking down with a bird’s eye view on fields of crops and far beyond to a distant skyline.
Other major works include statuesque boxing hares on a hilltop and a monumental cuckoo.
There are also paintings of landscapes and weather not inhabited by animals, but where signs of human habitation are evident in small houses, winding lanes or a small tractor ploughing.
‘It’s not just the huge panoramas I’m interested in, it’s the scale of things – those small signs of human activity in the larger picture – telegraph poles, houses, churches, the furrows and marks of the farmer.”
In the renaissance tradition, James Lynch cooks up his white gesso and makes his own egg tempera paint, combining raw pigment with egg yolks from chickens he keeps near his garden studio.
‘I love the way the paint surface reflects light through its egg shell sheen.
There’s also something satisfying about working with these ancient raw ingredients.”
The translucency of the egg tempera allows the bright gesso ground to reflect ambient light through the pigments, and gives the paintings an other- worldly luminosity.
They glow with the vagaries of the English weather and the light that drifts across the chalk downs, granite hills and soft green meadows.
This interest in the elements and the landscape sets James Lynch firmly in the English Romantic tradition and links him with artists such as Samuel Palmer, Ravilious and Minton.
Press Information: For more information please contact Alice Phillimore at alicephillimore@jonathancooper.co.uk or on 020 7351 0410.
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