ARTIST STATEMENT
My subject matter addresses issues of women’s mental health; emotional turmoil from external influences, biology, and the brain and body connection. I draw on my own lived experience and research to portray shared struggles and to break the stigmas of conversation, diagnosis, and treatments of mental health. Further down the rabbit hole, I want to define where boundaries can be pushed against to claim a more equal space, and where they may be enforced to protect our mental and physical well being. With these boundaries more clearly defined, shame lifted, and resources available, we may find the ability to be unique individuals with the support we need to thrive. My choices of mixed materials and brushstroke in my paintings are deliberate, creating layers of criticism, fears, chaos, and hope with cheerful color, a dark humor, and protective symbolism. I want my work to evoke an intimate look at the inside of what we are feeling and striving for.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Lynell Ingram is a fine art mixed-media painter and experimenter from Arlington Heights, IL, who earned her BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. She works with figures combined with symbolism and colorful surrealism to visually discuss cultural impacts on women’s mental health. Women who came before her who pushed boundaries in many ways and used unexpected approaches to medium use, such as Suzanne Jackson and Emma Amos, continue to inspire her to experiment and push her own boundaries. Ingram’s work draws from how she has been affected by mental health struggles and where those overlap with the experience of existing in this society as a woman in a more universal way. Her work picks at expectations from personal relationships, community pressures, questions of bodily autonomy and rights, and cultural gender roles that leave few unscathed in influencing who we become and how we experience life. Ingram spent 15 years working in graphic arts and illustration, which enabled her to bring a touch of illustrative storytelling to her current work. She is listed in the Where Are The Women Artists directory, published in Kilter Magazine and the Daily Herald, and has exhibited work in multiple Chicagoland galleries, including most recently, ‘Kaleidoscope,’ a group exhibit with Vibrant Cast Gallery in Chicago, IL, and a solo exhibit of ‘The Inspiration Project,’ at Prospect Heights Public Library.
© Lynell Ingram