Thomas Flynn II

artist statement

My current body of work explores the integration of body, landscape, and mind through multilayered sculptural paintings rooted in personal narratives and lived experiences in the American South. These pieces echo a process of self-discovery and reflection, drawing on a visual lexicon of symbols to represent shifting emotional states and internal journeys. The forest and the body emerge as central motifs—sites of transformation, concealment, and revelation.

In Appalachian folk wisdom, the forest holds a dual significance: it is revered as a powerful, sentient force, and simultaneously seen as a place of caution—an ecosystem in which we exist as inhabitants, visitors, or prey. This duality informs the forest imagery in my work, where twisting forms camouflage hidden elements—fragments of bodies and organic shapes that emerge or recede depending on the viewer’s perspective.

Each painting begins as acrylic on flat canvas, layered with washes and gestural brushstrokes. From this foundation, the work can take multiple forms: it may remain as a raw-edged flat piece, be stretched onto a support, or be cut and reassembled onto hand-constructed wooden shapes. These wooden forms are cut by hand, using either manufactured or locally sourced wood.

At the heart of this practice is an ongoing question: Where is the body, where is the mind, and why are they so deeply entangled with the forest? The forest, like the self, is in constant flux: dying, regenerating, and persisting. My work creates a parallel world drenched in color and layered with bodily silhouettes—an embodied landscape that serves as a metaphor for modern life, fractured by thought, shaped by social context, and grounded in the rhythms of the natural world.