LYNNE STONE BIOGRAPHICAL
I was born in Cardiff, Wales UK to a post-war Royal Air Force family. My early childhood was in the shelter of my Welsh family. Then the RAF moved us every two or three years between counties in Britain and countries abroad until we settled for a while in Warwickshire.
My fine art schooling began with an Art Foundation Program at the Leamington Spa School of Art in Warwickshire. From there, I had the good fortune to be accepted into The University of London, Goldsmiths College of Art with concentrations in Sculpture and Printmaking. I met and married an American sculptor while at Goldsmiths, himself fresh from an American graduate art school. I then emigrated to the USA with him when he returned there, and we settled-down in a college town in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. At that time my art focus became painting, a lucky happen stance determined by lack of workspace. We were then granted an opportunity to travel to Paris, France and live there for six months in The Cite International des Arts. The time in Paris was wonderful and stimulated a suppressed need in me to return to a city art-life in the USA. Following our return, our small family moved from the Finger Lakes to New York City where I lived from 1977 to 1999.
The late 70's and 80's in New York were an exceptional time for artists. My art affiliation was with Expressionism, including German Expressionism, American Expressionism, Italian Expressionism, and East Village Neo-Expressionism. My paintings were usually asymmetrical and often constructions. In New York, I participated at first with co-op galleries, including the Bowery Gallery. I was eventually taken-on by Area X Gallery in the East Village. I remained with Area X through its move to Soho where it unhappy closed--my last show with Area X was in Soho.
By 1999 New York seemed increasingly crowded. I left town first for Connecticut followed by the Hudson Valley where I established my home and studio. My gallery affiliation is now with Green Kill, an art and peformance space in Kingston NY that fosters and supports a diverse, quality art community in the the Kingston area and beyond.
STATEMENT
My 2019 works are constructions of a kind. I begin by priming linen canvas with shapes of clear gesso and acrylic-tinted gesso. The linen weave is visible through the clear gesso, that somehow asks me for a different interface with the surface. I have no preconception of what will happen on the canvas and no set subject in mind. I free-associate using elements that are human and abstract. I am most attracted to elements that seem energized.
Human elements may be arm or hand gestures, faces whole or in part, body parts--all observed in my own photos or in magazines or completely invented. When a 'thing" comes together I feel an odd tickle in my synapses like a little electric current--it tells me I'm on to something. The art and philosophy of DADA and the paintings of R.b. Kitaj are the important pictorial and philosophical under-pinnings of my work right now.
