Coal Camp Series Exhibition At Huntington Museum Of Art, 2011-2012
Lenny Lyons Bruno was born in a West Virginia coal camp in 1947. The Coal Camp Series is a virtual narrative of her early years. Ms. Bruno shares her memories in large paintings that incorporate a wide variety of materials including quilts, photographs, ledgers and found objects, many of which date back to that era. Her sculptures are comprised of everyday objects reconfigured into iconoclastic forms that create a sense of reflection and wonder.
"The paintings and sculptures in this series are not overtly romanticized statements, nor are they nostalgic longings for the past. Instead, they are powerful, mixed- media works which present complex surfaces that can be read in multiple ways. The objects in this series are works of passion created after years of putting distance between the present and the past. They are stand-ins or symbols for people, places and lifestyle long gone. Each work is full of tension, humor, sense of place, the familiar and the mysterious. They are also rich repositories of intimately personal and family history, objects of desire and derision, conflicted diaries of love and animosity, and of self-exploration and forgiveness.
The viewer comes away from the exhibit with a greater understanding of the “child triumphant” overcoming great mental anguish and physical neglect to be able to look back from a healthy place with a content and happy heart that has finally come to terms with distant troubles and is able to create positive objects with universal appeal."
--Jenine Culligan, Senior Curator at the Huntington Museum of Art