New exhibit sees familiar subjects depicted by a new technique from artist Lynn Sweet
STORY BY OLIVIA TADER AND SARAYA BREWER | PHOTO BY MICK JEFFRIES
With colors and imagery that are reminiscent to his other recent collections, the new exhibit by artist Lynn Sweet at New Editions Gallery might feel familiar to audiences who know his work. But a closer look at the pieces in the exhibit “A Walk in the Woods,” on display at the gallery through Nov. 2, reveals a significant departure from the artist’s signature technique and a return to a method he says he hasn’t employed since he was a teenager.
For much of his painting career, Lynn Sweet has been creating fresco-style paintings — a style he was first inspired to try decades ago during one of many annual trips to visit his best friend in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“The process includes mixing earth pigments and oxides with marble dust and acrylic artist medium, slathering it on, layering it and sanding it down to reveal the upper levels of the lower layers,” he explained. Initially using a palette knife to apply the layers of pigment, he later transitioned into a more unique — albeit painstaking — approach, using cake piping bags to paint down one line at a time.
It was a detail-oriented and labor-intensive process and one that eventually took a physical toll on the artist. After years of making fresco-style paintings, Sweet was forced to move away from this style in recent years due to straining the ligaments of his thumbs, which required surgery on both of his hands . After his operations, he was devastated to learn that he could not return to his beloved fresco process because of the pain he was still experiencing.
New Editions Gallery owner Frankie York offered to sell Sweet’s last collection of fresco work at her gallery, but they were too special to him to sell.
“Even if all of them sold, it wouldn’t make a difference to my lifestyle,” he said. He decided he would rather keep the collection for sentiment and create an entire new collection of landscape paintings, which he’s been working on for the past 20 months. The landscapes depicted in this collection are similar to those in the pieces from his last collection, but the paintings were created using a different technique with acrylic paint and a paintbrush rather than the fresco style he had spent so many years honing.
While acrylic painting is a common technique, it was his first time since high school using these materials, Sweet said.
“I thought [these paintings] would be easier,” Sweet said of the process. “They aren’t easier — they are just a different kind of work.”
As with his frescos, Sweet still starts with what he calls a “cartoon” of the painting: a smaller initial sketch colored with gouache. He then creates a grid of that smaller sketch that he references block-by-block when creating the larger, final painting. That initial part of the process can take dozens of hours alone. But throughout the process, he has enjoyed the different challenges of using a new method, and also a new freedom from some of the restrictions caused by the tools and techniques of his former style.
Much of Sweet’s landscape work is inspired by time he’s spent out in nature, including personal experiences riding through central Kentucky on his motorcycle with his friends. Many of the specific images depicted in this collection came directly from photographs taken by Kentucky photographer David Allen Fitts, including many paintings of photos of Red River Gorge. The landscape of New Mexico has also long been a source of inspiration for Sweet’s work.