Arteles Catalogue 2023-2020

Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH 2023
Lynn Lobo
Australia
www.lynnlobo.com
About
I’m a painter and a Process Oriented psychotherapist from
Australia. My main media is oil paint and gouache. As a
perceptual painter, I watch nature closely and paint mostly
from direct observation within the genres of landscape
and still life. What really fascinates me are light and colour
patterns. Composition is a play of abstract shapes in
pictorial space. As a perceptual painter, I am questioning and
breaking down my assumptions of perception. Nature is my
greatest teacher.
Ideas emerge through a deeply felt, meditative gaze. They
are drawn in pencil and coalesce through gouache studies.
These studies form the foundation for larger compositions in
oil paint. The slow drying nature of oil paint enables paint to
be laid down thickly or thinly glazed, creating rich layers of
subtlety and depth. The blending of edges and the ‘meaty’
pull of paint weaves the image together. Through the act
of painting, I enter into a mysterious struggle. The painting
works itself out through my body.
Incidental moments that we marginalise are my starting
point. I feel into the way light moves through air and observe
the way colour shifts through space. Beauty lies within the
mundane, in a fleeting moment.
Light on Snow
During this residency, I learned how to see the colour of snow,
and through study, snow taught me about a whole new side
of my palette. Every painting was a challenge and I learned to
work from memory. Our experiences shape us. Our shape is
in part the culmination of experiences embodied throughout
our life.
While hunting for a subject to paint, I lightly hold the
question, ‘what aspect of myself wants to be seen?’ I enter
the landscape without preconception, phone in hand. When
something catches my attention, I catch it, taking many
photographs. I am trying to clarify something, a vague feeling
or a moment of light.
One brushstroke at a time, my whole being creates a painting.
My whole being remembers. I have some basic ideas, values
and strategies for organising marks on a canvas. But so much
is not consciously planned. The tremor in my hand, holding
the brush is the wrestle between conscious and unconscious
intent. Then I have to surrender and let the painting paint itself.
It occurs to me that my body is organising it’s patterned self
in that moment through the emerging patterns on the canvas.
In other words, I perceive a pattern in the world and through
the filter of my being, I reflect it back in paint. I am those
closely observed patterns. Through painting, I am organising
and remembering myself, distilling the experience down in
stillness. In stillness, I have many faces.
You can read my blog posts here: https://www.lynnlobo.
com/2023/04/11/finland-residency-reflections/#more-6314