Artist Profile 019: Lynne M. Ghenov

Bio 
Lynne Marinelli Ghenov is a visual artist who primarily makes drawings and works on paper. She showed this past summer at UT’s Downtown Gallery in Knoxville, TN, in a two-person show called A Rose Goes with Ada(formerly Amanda)Friedman. Lynne has also shown at Crosstown Arts in Memphis, TN, Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Brooklyn, NY, LA, and GCCA in Greenville, SC, as well as Proto Gallery in Hoboken, NJ, Monte Vista Projects in Los Angeles, CA, and University City Arts League in Philadelphia, PA. She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1975 and raised in Southern New Jersey. She currently lives and works in Knoxville, TN, where she co-founded and co-directed C for Courtside Gallery, an artist-run curatorial space in north downtown Knoxville, from 2017-2020. She graduated from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA, receiving her BFA in sculpture in 1998. She also studied abroad at Temple University Rome in Italy in 1996. Lynne is the Associate at Loghaven Artist Residency in Knoxville, TN. 


Artist Statement
My work mirrors the act of bricolage, though most of the elements mixed in are absorbed and translated through and in the process of drawing. An array of ephemera and objects that spur memory, generate a story, or conjure sentimentality, is vital to my drawing practice. Family business ledgers, old lined paper, children’s toys, found architectural drawings, and antique letters encompass the material choices that create the work’s substrate. The translation of objects takes shape via the act of rubbing, tracing, and observational drawing. The primary materials utilized in my drawings consist predominantly of graphite and colored pencils, pens, and watercolor. Conceptually the themes that embody my work draw heavily from memory, loss, and how to assemble the present through summoning the past. As mentioned earlier, this past, which often resides in the ephemera, forms space to allow for an intuit call and response between found articles and the triggered within the imaginary. The grid in a ledger paper, a tracing of a childhood toy, or a house key are factors that frequently ignite the operational characteristic of the work. Objects are an integral part of my internal logic, though, at times, they reside invisibly on the piece’s surface. A blend of tightly drawn geometric shapes and sometimes recognizable forms related to home, decor, decoration, pattern, and more emerges, interacts, and overlaps.

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