statement & bio

ARTIST STATEMENT

In my studio practice I instinctively recognize myself on a mission without a clear idea of the formal outcome. A project, often without formal definition, stems from an impetus that is usually very specific, and strongly suggests a technique or medium. 
            The reasons for working are always clear in my mind. I might relive a place or an experience—the narrative of a site, contemplating natural or architectural phenomena, awareness of a moment in the world—and then work towards an allusion to this thing, via the inexactitude of memory and the full range of physical senses. Or I might be focused on a specific scientific phenomenon, because the sciences of geology, anthropology, and physics guide my lifelong curiosity in time perception, evolutionary development, and capacity for change. I internalize what I observe or uncover in research, and naturally interpret the sciences in my work. 
            As an artist, I am in my preferred place in a long and physical process of making. During this time, a vivid connection with the material as well as the concept, the reason for being, roots me in my work.

Lynn Sures

 

 

BIO

 

2016 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow (SARF) and since 2018 a Museum of Natural History Researcher in drawing, Lynn Sures is a multidisciplinary Washington, DC based artist working in handmade paper, pulp painting, drawing, artist books, printmaking, ceramic sculpture, and forged steel. Her current focus is the nexus between art and science, in which she considers the physical world and its juncture with the origins of humans—as early humans’ interdependence with ecology has currency with our contemporary discourse. Her artist books have appeared in several published collections, including the Penland Book of Handmade Books. Her work is held in collections including the United States Department of State, the US Library of Congress, Yale University, New York Public Library, the Fabriano Museo della Carta e della Filigrana, and the American Museum of Papermaking. Lynn has exhibited in solo shows in New York, Istanbul, and Mexico City, and created art works for events in Australia, Japan, Italy. In Sri Lanka, she was a U.S. State Department American Artist Abroad. She is founding director of the national Collegiate Paper Triennial exhibition; and of the annual Fabriano Paper/Print/Book Italian study abroad experience. She was guest editor of the 2016 Winter issue of Hand Papermaking magazine, on the papermaking of Italy. Most recently Professor and Chair of Fine Arts at the Corcoran College of Art and Design, Washington, DC, until its closure in August, 2014; she has also taught at Columbia College, Chicago; University of the Arts, Philadelphia; and George Washington University, Washington, DC where she is Professor Emerita of Art and Design She regularly offers workshops at centers such as Penland School, and has been a visiting artist at universities and museums nationally and internationally.