Kristen Flynn

Feb 8

Chinchilla, Queensland, Australia

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How would you describe your work?

My artworks are mixed print works, with some collage, exploring my identity through imagery representative of my lived experience. Consisting of solar plate etchings, monotypes, and sometimes screen printing, each work uses oil on Fabriano paper, and sometimes using both oil and acrylic on Fabriano paper. My works serve as a non-chronological snapshot of who I am and how I artistically perceive my lived experience. I want the audience to approach my work and think ‘what is going on here’, and to feel simultaneously what Clive Bell coined ‘significant form’. Significant form is based around the idea that the formal qualities of an artwork, for example, colour, line, and shape, can stir our aesthetic emotion. Additionally, I want the audience to be challenged by the myriad of imagery and symbolism presented in my works, and consider what meaning is made. For a lot of my works there is a play on the boundaries of beautiful and ugly, alive and dead, abstract and realistic.

What inspires you?

I am inspired by a range of twentieth century artists, in particular German dadaist Hannah Höch, and American artist Robert Rauschenberg. Living on a farm, I am also motivated by my immediate surroundings and happenings, like the death of animals, and the blooming of flowers.

Can you speak about your process?

My process starts with image collection and documentation, which is embedded into my daily life. If I see an object with transient value to my practice, in that it feels full of energy and loaded with Western connotations of life, death, beauty and or decay, I will collect the item and take a photo. Objects that are small and can be moved like a cicada, I will photograph in a space with natural light and on a plain coloured background. Objects that cannot be moved, for example, a semi-decayed kangaroo carcass, I will photograph in its natural surroundings. I have collected hundreds of images of animal bones, animal skulls, flowers, feathers, leaves, and scanned copies of works from Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, whose work has been described as ‘a universal visual shorthand for beauty’ (The World’s Greatest Paintings: The Birth of Venus 2021). I then play with digital layering, merging images together, especially over my face, and sometimes eye, and as a result my work is both physically and metaphorically where ‘the self and the world fuse in an embodied encounter’ (Chaplin in Gaut & Lopes, 2013, p.134). I know the composition is absolute when the images meld with one another and from my perspective, feels complete; this being when I have created an image that it is, from my view, simultaneously beautiful and ugly, and merges my reality with an unknown alternate reality.

I then expose my work onto a solar etching plate. I will then print my etching plate onto paper. Sometimes I will add a monotype with the solar plate etching. Additionally, in some works I will play with collage by utilising past etchings, past monotypes, coloured papers, and plastic transparencies.

How did you become interested in art?

I have always been drawn to art. Many of my childhood memories consist of being artistic and collecting artist magazines. Moreover, I started my journey into the art world as a high school art teacher. I love teaching art and was content teaching art rather than making it during my ealry twenties, unitl I entered motherhood. Something inside of me changed, I felt I had something important to explore and communicate, and all of a sudden I felt compelled to make art. To assist my transistion from art teacher to artist, I enrolled in a Masters of Creative Arts throught the University of Southern Queensland. I juggled two children and external part-time study, which proved to be very difficult; however, I persevered for five years. I recieved emotional support from my family and freinds, and as of today I make art whenever I can, in between being a mother, and conducting art workshops. Improving my art knowledge through post-graduate studies was definately the right choice for me. It gave me an immediate artist network, and the level of education to be able to adequetley think about and talk about my practice and artworks.

Do you have any favorite artists, movies, books, or quotes?

I am love with Robert Rauschenberg’s printmaking. Although my work seems a lot more ordered and ‘neat’ I do take a lot of influence from his works and overall aesthetic.

What advice do you have for younger artists?

Don’t play it safe, be risky, the worst that can happen is that you make crappy art, and that is ok.