Christine Flynn

Dianna Witte Gallery

Title: Big Sur Wave

Edition 1/1

Dimensions: 52" x 32"

Medium: Photograph with mixed media

Value: $4,600

Date: 2020

Courtesy of Dianna Witte Gallery and the Artist

Christine Flynn blends photography with abstract elements of design--coats of paint and gold leaf are layered on top of an image--to create a photograph with the texture of a painting. Finished with a coat of high-gloss resin, the work is simultaneously contemporary and nostalgic. By using mixed media techniques, Flynn creates images that are impossible to replicate. The goal of Flynn's work isn't to present a realistic portrayal of what a place looks like, but instead a utopian ideal of what a destination feels like; a kinetic image of a dreamlike setting that exists only in our imaginations. Flynn composes images that hinge on nostalgia to ground the viewer. With the advent of Instagram, we have become inundated with travel photographs that are aspirational. Flynn's art pushes against the genre of travel photography who's purpose is to create envy and instead allows us, the viewer, to access a feeling of recognition or belonging in a place we've never been. Flynn's latest show at the gallery brought together a collection of photographs from various places that Flynn has traveled to, with the ocean as the defining element. Walking through the show each geographic place becomes indistinguishable from one another and a feeling of what being next to the ocean emerges. Since her first solo show at Pulse Contemporary Art Fair in New York, Flynn's work has been widely exhibited in North America and Europe. She has galleries in Paris, London, San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Toronto.