About Lynn Thorpe
Brief Bio
Lynn Thorpe grew up in a small Wyoming town at the edge of the BlackHills. She studied French and English at the University of Washington (BA 1968); Art at the Canberra School of Art, Canberra, A.C.T., Australia (1975-77); the University of Wyoming (2nd BA and MFA 1983); and printmaking at the Canadian Institute of Non-Toxic Printmaking, Peace River, and Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada, (1994 and 1997). She has worked in a variety of positions, both academic and non-academic, in Canada, Australia, Japan, and the US. She became a member of the art faculty of Northwest College in Powell, in 1984, where she taught 2D design, design: color, painting, and printmaking. She now lives and works in Albuquerque, NM. ( at left. Morning at Becker Lake. o/p. 6' x 6"). Please contact me for a full Resume.
Selected Exhibitions:
New Mexico Art League. 2022, Black and White; 2023,
Still Life, Small Works; 2024, Common Ground.
The Dahl Arts Center, Rapid City, 2 Women/ 2 Ways,
2021.
Sage Community Arts, Sheridan, Conceptual
Realism (group), 2019;
Brinton Museum, Big Horn WY, Brinton 101, 2017-2021;
Yellowstone Art Museum Auction,
2017 -2021. (at right: Ladders of Light. o/paper. 16" x 20".)
Exhibitions Continued
Un/ Conscious Bent. Yellowstone Art Museum. Mar 20 – August 20, 2014 .
Between Earth and Sky. Lynn Thorpe, Paintings/Bright Springman, Sculpture. The Dahl, Rapid City SD.January 19 – March 17, 2007.
The Buffalo Bill Art Show and Sale. September 23-24, 2005-2009. Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY (at left, South Fork . water color, 4" x 5".)
Please contact me for a full exhibition record.
A Way of Working and Thinking
Conceptual Realism, Maybe
The earth becomes foldable, or twistable, or spindled or blows
aside like a curtain to reveal a pattern behind it.
What I do is always based on observation with the caveat that elements of these observations are intellectually and intuitively re-composed to create visual works which comment on the ways in which we live our lives on this earth.
A little More about the Work
Observing, thinking, feeling, all determine my ways of working.
There is always a cerebral component, an observational component and an emotional component. While some works are planned, laid out according to the golden section, colors chosen and mixed in advance, and carefully executed (mainly the landscapes or riffs on landscape); others are free, spontaneous play with the media and the process (mainly the drawings). In the process of working (whether in the controlled or spontaneous manner) intuition or gut feeling or the media, may assert themselves and push the work in one way or another. I have learned that I have to listen to this intuition.
(at left. Ships. graphite on Rives BFK. 10 x 16".)
The work on this website
The work on this website is a range of what I do and what I have done.
The landscapes are generally done from photographs I have taken on my travels either around town or in this country or others. The most realistic landscapes have been part of commissions.
The small sketches done in marker are generally the only pleine aire, on-the-spot works.
The Older works are mainly works left from bodies of work intended as sets (Infinitive Infinities), but from which some have sold; or from individual works which did not evolve into series. Some are works which I did not want to sell.
The drawings are a continuing series improvised from fragments of thoughts/observations, or from my continual habit of photographing light patterns formed on walls, ceilings, etc. around my house.