"When considering the ways in which art communicates with us it is easiest thought about in terms of linear versus circular action. Through that filter, if a still life painting is the equivalent of a one-way monologue or lecture, then those art works that are non-objective and abstracted can be seen as a conversation – an intimate dialogue between the artist and the viewer that requires investment on the part of both. In the works of Lenny Lyons Bruno, the paintings not only want to talk with us, they want us to pull up a chair for a long afternoon of storytelling - and perhaps a cup of tea. With each foot firmly planted in painting and sculpture, respectively, the work of Lyons Bruno straddles a line between the two, using narrative images and common objects – most in some state of decay - to convey the memories of her impoverished childhood in a West Virginia coal camp.
Though heavily laden with memory and meaning, the paintings are not burdensome. The painted surfaces are articulated by the layering that we associate with traditional types of craftwork like the very quilts upon which the artist paints. While they may appear two dimensional upon first viewing, with time each work reveals the intricate textures and topographical nature that comes from the many layers of gesso and paint that are used to create it. The beauty of that surface and the images imbedded within it is the access point to the activity of understanding - a slow “sinking in” process. Only with time can we begin to unravel and separate the formal qualities from the narratives that lie within. Although these works start with the stories they tell, they also leave impressions that linger in the mind, developing more complex meanings over time. The pairing of personal images with ordinary, devalued objects is tied to an exhortation to contemplate what it was to live this way.
The objects and material surfaces that Lyons Bruno uses work to set the context and convey the passage of time as well as evoke emotional dissonance. This idea of the artist as alchemist – one who transmutes a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value - is not a new one. From the moment Marcel Duchamp first elevated a mundane object to the realm of art by exploiting its inherent beauty, he opened the door for artists like Joseph Cornell, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and a host of contemporary artists that followed to remind us that our personal relationship to objects carries heavily within it deep meanings and associations. Lyons Bruno relies on that lineage through her use of found objects and the central roles that she gives them as characters in her painted narratives. The resulting transformation of the objects into artistic medium in turn allows them to become symbols of the artist’s personal history, which we are compelled to neither dismiss nor forget.
It is difficult to understand what inspires creativity. Is the need to create imprinted in the human genes? Lenny Lyons Bruno is not a formally trained artist, although she has instinctively made art – either in photograph, textile manipulation, painting or sculpture - for most of her life. It is interesting to note the way in which the universal, compelling drive to create that has been evident since the dawn of civilization and has been explored by philosophers for centuries is so present in Lyons Bruno’s practice, despite such a seemingly desperate upbringing. Drawings helped early humans to think symbolically, allowing them to hold the image of an animal in mind while gazing at the lines drawn on the wall that were meant to represent it. Today psychologists define this ability as working memory and it is not only central to the artist’s practice and her paintings, but is essential for the viewer if the meaning imbedded there is to be properly processed.
British painter John Opie (1761-1807) once said, “Art is more Godlike than science; science discovers, but art creates.” Lyons Bruno’s process of examining and expressing experiences is one that suggests the kind of creation to which Opie was referring. There is no decoding here; just like the quilted surface on which she paints, Lenny Lyons Bruno has tirelessly folded, cut and pieced together works that we will continue to wrap ourselves in long after the last knot is tied."
Though heavily laden with memory and meaning, the paintings are not burdensome. The painted surfaces are articulated by the layering that we associate with traditional types of craftwork like the very quilts upon which the artist paints. While they may appear two dimensional upon first viewing, with time each work reveals the intricate textures and topographical nature that comes from the many layers of gesso and paint that are used to create it. The beauty of that surface and the images imbedded within it is the access point to the activity of understanding - a slow “sinking in” process. Only with time can we begin to unravel and separate the formal qualities from the narratives that lie within. Although these works start with the stories they tell, they also leave impressions that linger in the mind, developing more complex meanings over time. The pairing of personal images with ordinary, devalued objects is tied to an exhortation to contemplate what it was to live this way.
The objects and material surfaces that Lyons Bruno uses work to set the context and convey the passage of time as well as evoke emotional dissonance. This idea of the artist as alchemist – one who transmutes a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value - is not a new one. From the moment Marcel Duchamp first elevated a mundane object to the realm of art by exploiting its inherent beauty, he opened the door for artists like Joseph Cornell, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and a host of contemporary artists that followed to remind us that our personal relationship to objects carries heavily within it deep meanings and associations. Lyons Bruno relies on that lineage through her use of found objects and the central roles that she gives them as characters in her painted narratives. The resulting transformation of the objects into artistic medium in turn allows them to become symbols of the artist’s personal history, which we are compelled to neither dismiss nor forget.
It is difficult to understand what inspires creativity. Is the need to create imprinted in the human genes? Lenny Lyons Bruno is not a formally trained artist, although she has instinctively made art – either in photograph, textile manipulation, painting or sculpture - for most of her life. It is interesting to note the way in which the universal, compelling drive to create that has been evident since the dawn of civilization and has been explored by philosophers for centuries is so present in Lyons Bruno’s practice, despite such a seemingly desperate upbringing. Drawings helped early humans to think symbolically, allowing them to hold the image of an animal in mind while gazing at the lines drawn on the wall that were meant to represent it. Today psychologists define this ability as working memory and it is not only central to the artist’s practice and her paintings, but is essential for the viewer if the meaning imbedded there is to be properly processed.
British painter John Opie (1761-1807) once said, “Art is more Godlike than science; science discovers, but art creates.” Lyons Bruno’s process of examining and expressing experiences is one that suggests the kind of creation to which Opie was referring. There is no decoding here; just like the quilted surface on which she paints, Lenny Lyons Bruno has tirelessly folded, cut and pieced together works that we will continue to wrap ourselves in long after the last knot is tied."