Bill Lynch – curated by Verne Dawson

White Columns is proud to present the first New York solo exhibition of the work of Bill Lynch (1960-2013).

The exhibition has been organized by the New York-based artist Verne Dawson.

“Bill Lynch and I met while students at Cooper Union at the end of the 1970s. Organizing this show in New York is surely a most bittersweet experience. It should have happened thirty years ago, or twenty, or ten, or five. But it didn’t. Bill died last year at 53 years old. He understood touch, understood paint, and understood that these are tools to access the ancient and the present, the living and the dead. We both are in debt to the impossibly brilliant Professor Arthur Corwin for his vast knowledge of myth and astronomy, the subjects that bound Bill and I together for 35 years as well as the fundamental instinct to paint something beautiful. His affliction, schizophrenia, eventually made our world difficult for him to be part of. He was loved and appreciated by his family and many friends as well as the love of his life, Sherry Johnson. His mother, Gerry Lynch, never lost faith, and these works are here thanks to her caring preservation.”
– Verne Dawson, 2014.

Lynch observed the everyday world around him, and in particular the natural world, with an extraordinary degree of empathy. In a text that accompanies the exhibition the writer Michael Wilde suggests:

“In these pictures everything is alive and communicating wildly. Lynch’s connection to subjects and landscapes, both in life and painting, was empathic: a flower or tree branch sings just as strongly as any bird; likewise a pre-Columbian vessel in spiritual communion with a Chinese philosopher’s stone or a pair of Paleolithic-era rubber-stamped Venuses—and he listened acutely, transcribing their conversation so you could hear it too. Their secrets opened up to him. Everywhere is meaning. Surrounded by his work, you can’t help but be struck by this vibrant language; his sincere belief, his love.”

White Columns is honored to present Bill Lynch’s work to New York audiences for the first time. We are grateful to Gerry Lynch and Bill’s family and friends for their enthusiasm and support for this project, and we are indebted to Verne Dawson for bringing this work to our attention

A text on Lynch’s work by Michael Wilde with a selection of Lynch’s own writings is available at the gallery.

For more information please contact: info@whitecolumns.org