Before the Exhibition
by Alina Andrei
The Romanians who think that Englishmen wear only tweed suits and top hats, smoke pipe, recite Shakespeare even on the red double deckers, and the rest of the time drink tea, play bridge and talk about the weather, the people of the artist Eleanor Lindsay Flinn may seem bizarre. They look totally different! First of all they make the impression to party unceasingly, that they keep on going to drown in alcohol shindigs, the aristocrats laugh at them all the time – there isn't any trace of typically British haughtiness we would expect. Then after you get beyond the crowds of revelers, of smiles and glasses (Londoner personalities, paparazzi, bottles and again many, many glasses) you realize that the swarm of bodies gets a new contour. The images are ironic, nimble, sad, jovial, depressing, hilarious, cheeky, stunning and even annoying, they are anything but boring! No, they aren't simple snapshots taken during the parties. I hope it's clear for everybody, who doesn't understand this aspect should better shut his eyes and stop looking at the artist's work. I thought myself that the persons invited to the opening in Baia Mare could be, in their turn, future models in Lady L's photographs (the artist's pseudonym). I dare to imagine them with the eyes of mind.
In the beginning I watched the works with the coldness of the researcher looking through the binoculars at a tribe he doesn't understand. An exotic tribe, with spectacular traditions. The same thing happens to me while looking at Martin Parr's photographs. For those who do not know him: he has a cruel humor, merciless, he photographs people finding themselves in hilarious situations and as a tyro looker you can't realize if he laughs at them or with them. I drew near the British artist's works, slowly, yet until a limit. I decided to stay at the edge, to cast a glance from somewhere outside, through the half-opened door. I can't do more than this, an extra step and I'd feel intruding on the intimacy of some strangers, which is far from my intention.
I have no idea what they'll exhibit in Baia Mare, I truly hope I'll find among the works the one entitled “My people, your people”. It's my favourite. I saw it on the internet and I'd like to see it in its natural size, in flesh and bones – if you may say such a thing about an image. I don't know how to describe it so that I don't sweep away its charm. I'm trying to. A room, big enough, where someone is living, you can feel it. Book shelves, paintings and plates on the walls, wardrobes and a chandelier with candles is hanging dangerously low. It's a party. The room is brimful, lots of guests, all young, through the wide opened door you can notice other guests wanting to get in, though I don't think anyone could enter anymore. No one is smoking. I'm passing my eyes on all kind of details. The guests' faces, the glass raised by a brunette to her mouth, I got to some fish in a painting, I descend to the right corner, there's a laughing man. My look is moving from the plates on the table to the talking and gesturing guests again. Something is just not right! A few intermingled heads are drawn! They look just like the ones from an experimental animation movie, therefore the people aren't entirely real. Their faces are not made up by bones, epidermis and hair threads, but by synthetic colors like those of the markers. The image is part of the “Yellow Faces” series and as the author reveals, invites the audience to face the myth of reality. It's up to each of us to decide what corresponds to reality and what not, I think, it depends to the inner universe. On her site, Lady L warns her visitors that certain persons which consider that art does not need explanations from the author's part, could feel offended by the works. An excessively honest warning, I guess, nobody died until now being forced to leave its prejudices at the door of the gallery.
If I think over, I prefer “Frieze is a strange cultural event” – a more striking work, looking like the pop-art. Or “From the Edge” – because many things happen there and there are so many faces that I'd need quite to get tired of watching it.. The scene shoes an opening in a big gallery, full of guests. The real heads have been coloured – they all look like some characters from “Waking Life”, and I'm expecting any time now to see them floating through the hall like in a dream. Their soles at a big distance from the floor and their foreheads close to the ceiling. In the end the border between the wakefulness and dream is a very thin line in certain works.
You could say that the world of the artist's images is only passing through the frame. Those people make conversation, they laugh, they look at the paintings or drink, only for a few seconds. If you blink for a few seconds they might move towards another dimension. Maybe I'm talking through one's hat, but that's the feeling I have, looking at them.
The mirrors make me think, naturally, of “Alice in Wonderland”, of the portals through which you can penetrate in another world. In the other! Two messages included in different images, both written on mirrors seem to me very important for the key of the works: “What are you hoping to find” and “Does suicide fascinate you?”. I think that each viewer's answer can be surprising.
Artist Statement.
by Eleanor Lindsay-Fynn
My work oscillates between three states of being.
State one, introspection, self-obsession and detachment from the world outside our immediate circle. Generally my earlier works were produced from this state. My first series, "I Don't Give a shit Anymore / Why do I Care so Much" is a selection of intimate melancholic portraits, mainly of my girl friends, they reflect the internal turmoil, and angst that was initially nurtured as it felt philosophical but eventually just became sad.
State two, perceiving the world. In this state everything is objectified, the focus is not on the self, but on the community. I look at these community which I belong not as an insider but rather as a stranger, photographing not the everyday but the spectacular and in a manner that draws out the 'Alice in Wonderland' like nature of the events. My project Family Album is a result of this, a project that I continue to work on exploring different mediums such as photography, paintings and digital drawings.
Finally state three, abandonment, loss of self. I have always taken pictures at parties and on nights out, but for a long time I wasn't drinking and remained detached, photographing as an observer. But more recently I have begun to let go more and more, going to parties where boundaries are being pushed further, entering the twilight hour were normal rules no longer apply. The project "Light Boxes" is a result of this, particularly an interest in the darker side of human nature in the same way as the surrealists. "Light Boxes" ironically titled, is a series of photo-collages taken usually during one night and are then arranged together on a light box. As a light, the boxes are normally switched off during the day and come alive when switched on again at night. The resultant images create psychological narratives which tell tales of loss, loneliness, emptiness, abandonment, love; searching states of being we are all too familiar with, that we put aside when we go to work but re-enter on a Saturday night.
I don't give a shit anymore / Why do I care so much? (2006)
by Eleanor Lindsay-Fynn
The Rules
I turned to art because I wanted to help girls deal with not fitting in. I wanted to teach them that nothing mattered that people did think like them and they would find them. I wanted to help them come to terms with the adult body they now inhabited and teach them to love it, not hate it as I did. But by the time I started it was too late. I had moved from the wanting to fit in stage, into a whole new stage of uncertainty. I kind of thought that once you were popular, had friends who love you, it would be all right but I was wrong. New challenges and dramas came along our way. That same being alone feeling that a close friend can prevent comes back, except the object of longing is now the ‘boyfriend,' the ‘life partner,' the ‘soul mate.' To make matters worse you either can't get a job or hate the job you are in. It is funny you think these middle class rich type have all the opportunities in the world, but they don't because they are too busy doing what is expected of them. All around me the people I used to drugs with were now either addicts or had moved away to try and get themselves clean. We would never say any of us had a drug problem, coke isn't physically addictive after all, but people start to ‘need' it. Alcohol as well, I mean who would of thought alcohol could be a problem for beautiful, young women. But it is. And don't get me started on dieting, every one of my friends is at least a stone lighter then they were at university, myself included. One of my friends told me it is just because they are better dieters, but it still worries me. So this is my tribute to all those people searching for love, for answers, for peace. And if you find it hold onto it, nourish and protect it. I cann't tell you where it is, only you can tell me that, but I can tell you where it isn't - it isn't in the expensive handbag you want to buy, it isn't in being thinner, it isn't in the man you love and it isn't in the bottle of champagne or the pill with the smiley face on.
Family Album (2006-2007)
by Eleanor Lindsay-Fynn
The artist like a child runs around her parent's world catching comical gestures and candid poses. In doing so the world she photographed seems unlike our own, real but not real. The pictures look staged, the perspective feels not quite right, the colours to vivid and the people look like actors. What do we mean by the real anyway?
Why is Ordinary so Depressing? (2007)
by Eleanor Lindsay-Fynn
My latest project tribes, has is my most ambitious project to date. I have photographed a series of sub-cultures, all of which I have been a part of. I have looked at my world as an anthropologist might have looked at a “primitive” tribe. The pictures reveal something fundamental about the way humans band together and reproduce themselves into groups. My intention was to show sameness rather than difference choosing pictures that reveal the tribal and sexual nature of these communities.
'Light' Boxes
by Eleanor Lindsay-Fynn
My background is academic; I have bachelors in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University and a Masters in Sociology and Photography from Goldsmiths. It is sociology that particularly interests me, people, and trends in personality and behaviour. My second project “Light Boxes” is a result of that, particularly an interest in the darker side of human nature. “Light Boxes” ironically titled, is a series of photo-collages taken usually on a one night adventure that are arranged together on a light box. The resultant images create psychological narratives which tell tales of loss, loneliness, emptiness, abandonment, love: searching states of being we are all too familiar with, that we put aside when we go to work but re-enter on a Saturday night.
Color Me In (2008) - p.s. I am single - so look at me.
by Eleanor Lindsay-Fynn
The pictures in this series are full of colour yet a certain emptiness hangs over them. At times you feel a part of something and at other times you feel like a voyuer looking on at scene you perhaps identify with but do not feel connected to. Life is much easier when you feel you belong, but it is not uncommon to feel alone, even when you have community. Together these pictures show different ways of being a part of something as well as representing communities in their transitional states.
The Scene (2008)
by Eleanor Lindsay-Fynn
The Multiple Personalities of London.
Yellow Faces
by Eleanor Lindsay-Fynn
Yellow faces, is my break through project, armed with the techniques developed in "Colour Me In" I have sought to represent the point where people stop looking like people and become something else. By exploring this vision I am placing the myth of reality in front of you.
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I don't give a shit anymore / Why do I care so much? (2006)
Family Album (2006-2007)
Why is Ordinary so Depressing? (2007)
'Light' Boxes
Color Me In (2008), p.s. I am single - so look at me.
The Scene (2008)
Yellow Faces
Social Circle
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