ART-PRESENTATION: Lynn Umlauf

The American artist Lynn Umlauf has been spending half of each year living and working both at sculpture and painting, in Italy in a very old farmhouse in southern Tuscany. Her work has increasingly taken the form of large, onsite installations. She also prowls the italian countryside, making improvisatory drawings as inspiration. Drawings are closely connected to sculptures. The reason is when Lynn works on a sculpture she draws at the same time.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Zurcher Gallery Archive

Lynn Umlauf exhibits works from 1988-2006 at Zurcher Gallery, over the years her work has increasingly taken the form of large, on-site installations referring to the personal and external influences in her life. Her sculpture is informed by drawing in space using wire, wire mesh, rubber, Plexiglas and occasionaly electric motors and light, often painted and sometimes very dense. These can hang from the ceiling, off the wall, or thrusting up from the floor, and recently outdoors. She also prowls the italian countryside, making improvisatory drawings as inspiration, and larger paintings in the studio. Drawings are closely connected to sculptures. The reason is when Lynn works on a sculpture she draws at the same time. Her method consists in using sanded and impregnated paper with pastel, watercolor or acrylic medium and often glued on free shaped canvases, which lends a handmade quality close to fresco. The result evokes analogies to shields and masks of primitive societies. But Lynn engages her work in a push and pull movement with inside outside ambiguities in live structures like painting in the air. While in New York, she’s been teaching advanced painting and sculpture at the School of Visual Arts.

Info: Zurcher Gallery, 33 Bleecker Street. New York, Duration: 4/1-25/2/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 12:00-18:00, Sun 14:00-18:00, www.galeriezurcher.com