Artist Statement:

Kate Lynch explores processes of deconstruction, reconstruction and conservation; highlighting historical features and visual histories revealed within buildings. Materials such as wallpapers are collected from demolition sites and renovation projects to create narrative artworks, where fragments from the past highlight current issues. The ongoing Collection and reinterpretation of materials, patterns and colour swatches has constituted an intimate mapping of individual places and the city as a whole.

She is currently interested in reinterpreting ‘The Green Man’; a motif which is commonly represented as a face surrounded by leaves, or with vegetation sprouting from the nose, mouth and head. Green Men are used as decorative architectural features, usually representing fertility and the regenerative cycle of the seasons. However, Lynch is concerned with linking this motif to the sense of regeneration happening within the city whilst highlighting what is effectively public artwork that already exists.

The ‘Talking City’ submission ‘Seen but not Heard? The Green Men of Stoke-on-Trent are talking’ features some of the ‘Green Men’ that can be seen in the city. These Green Men are all ‘disgorging’ leaves and foliage…however lynch suggests that they are in fact communicating with these leafy speech bubbles, which also contain ‘hidden’ messages. It has been said that the Green Men that adorned Victorian architecture were ‘seen but not heard’; they were used in abundance but nobody knows why, or what they signified. Therefore, this work attempts to give these motifs a meaning they were once lacking, by suggesting that they can ‘talk’.

Click here to go to Kate Lynch’s Website

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TALKING CITY is Anna Francis’ Longhouse Guest Editor project, for March 2010.

Click here to go to the project page.