Pamela Flynn, Lake Como, NJ based artist with “Loss #1”, 2012, Mixed media on paper, digital image, colored pencil on overlay, thread, 10 x 8 inches in “Deadlocked and Loaded”. As I listen to the wind howl outside my windows, I imagine this empty swing swaying in these gale force winds. How sad and lonely it is. I can also imagine hearing the lamenting and howling cries from parents struck with grief from the loss of a beloved child—that swing now forever empty.
Flynn says, “Gun violence is part of our lives. Gun violence destroys lives and destroys community. Loss #1 is from a collection of works that focuses on the impact of gun violence-how gun violence is not an abstract notion but is an everyday event in United States—an event that devastates one’s life. This mixed media work is part of a traveling anti-gun violence exhibit titled Considering Harm. The images in Considering Harm are meant to pull the viewer in and force the viewer to consider the harm a gun in the community can have on one’s life.
My work is process intense. When I use seed beads each one is individually placed and when I stitch on paper all the stitching is done by hand with the piercing of the paper done with a needle. When encaustic is used it is moved over the surface over and over again until the effect is perfect. Any digital images are self-taken and the drawings are done on fragile vellum. The physical process of making art is important to me. The tedious hours spent bent over a piece reflects life—the need to focus and concentrate on what is important, on what makes life rich and precious.”
Pamela Flynn is a mixed media artist. Her work is founded in social/cultural issues. Flynn holds an MFA from New Jersey City University and is a Professor of Art and Fine Arts Coordinator at Holy Family University, Philadelphia. She is an exhibiting artist at the Ceres Gallery, NYC, a member of NYC Phoenix Art Collective, and a member of The Women’s Caucus for Art, Philadelphia Chapter. Her work has been exhibited nationwide and in South Korea. She is a recipient of the 2006 Puffin Foundation Grant for the project Road Shrines: A Peripheral Blur. Her anti-gun violence project Considering Harm has been exhibited in many cities in the United States.
Learn more at pamelaflynnart.com and @pamelaflynnart
