Nathan Lynch: We Are Speaking
di Rosa Grounds
October 10, 2024 – January 12, 2025
Sculptor and performance artist Nathan Lynch presents We Are Speaking, an installation consisting of three sculptural podiums installed in di Rosa’s landscape. The Bully Pulpit, Platform on Peace, and Speech Aboard the Iceberg — large, curving podium structures with undulating surfaces and in hues of red, white, and deep blue, respectively — evoke the poles of civic discourse and the absurdity of American life. Lynch’s works serve as set pieces to be activated, welcoming voices — large or small, loud or whispering — to step forward and be heard.
About the Artist
Nathan Lynch was raised in Pasco, WA, an agricultural community in the shadow of Hanford Nuclear Power Plant. The futility of this environmental contradiction gave Lynch an acute sense of location and deep appreciation for irony. In the five formative years after graduation Lynch worked as the prop master for a local community theatre, the effects of which are still being realized in his current body of work. His concerns for political conflict and environmental upheaval are filtered through notions of absurdity, hand fabrication, and the dramatic devices of storytelling.
As a sculptor, designer, and performance artist, Lynch has made collaboration and experimentation major components of his practice. Recent projects include Warp and Weft at Gallery 16, Journey of Life In Venice, Italy, and nest module design for Cassin’s Auklets on the Farallon Islands. At the University of Southern California Lynch studied with Ken Price, and later earned an MFA at Mills College with Ron Nagle. Mills fostered a rich interdisciplinary culture including work with contemporary composers and poets, led by the warmth and support of artist Ann Chamberlain. Lynch is an Assistant Professor of Art at California College of the Arts.