Lynn Criswell

Maple Meets Catalpa

2019, Archival inkjet print on photographic paper on aluminum dibond

119 x 96 cm

The premise for Maple meets Catalpa comes about from Criswell’s transitional lifestyle these past 120 months. She has lived 50 of them in Istanbul while the other 70 in northern California, in the city of Chico. This segmented time in two extremely different cities has allowed her the opportunity to blend, overlap and weave these two distinct lifestyles and locations into her studio work. Although the distance between Chico and Istanbul is 10,779 kilometers, there is only a mere 2 degrees longitude difference between them, which grants immense similarities in flora and fauna; this has become ever more obvious on each move, sometimes fall, sometimes spring. Framing a photograph of a woodpecker’s hole from her backyard in California and juxtaposing it on top of a catalpa tree she walked by every day on the Sabanci University campus makes complete sense of the parallels of this moment.

Red Rabbits with Companion

2019, Archival inkjet print on aluminum dibond

77 x 140 cm

Red Rabbits with Companion is one view, in a specific location and time, defining a unique companionship. You may ask yourself, are the two rabbits themselves each other’s companion? Or is the inanimate doll head to the right, their confidant and silent conspirator? Criswell would like to think she has the answer. For her, the piece began once she put the Red Rabbits on the wall at Gate 27 and it quietly demanded another element. So, she searched for a likely mate to keep them company and hold them balanced on the flat space. For Criswell studio work is not logical or obvious, it doesn’t travel in a straight line conceptually, it curves and twists. So, the partnering of these two seemingly unrelated images made perfect sense to her then and even more so now.