An Interview With Thuraya Lynn
By: A Bad Crit
ABC: Tell us a little bit about what you do.
TL: I’m a person who draws and paints dark comedy on the side. I can read dreams, pretty neat.
ABC: What inspires you to do your work?
TL: It’s pretty hard to pinpoint out the reasons why I do what I do, for the most of it, I do it because I’m infatuated with the stillness images in my head. It’s a combination of matters and experiences bond together with ideas typical to me.
I utilize concepts in my works, focusing mostly on portrayal of young children as they “develop” and converse themselves into this world. I can never understand the link between childhood and innocence. Mind you, I’m not trying to create some creepy uncensored ideals about them tiny feet. I can’t help but feel excited by the haunting setting when children inhabit in matter that wouldn’t fit their social label. Zero politics in this, the way I was brought up made me realize kids abuse their status. What I do pokes fun of them. I try to create images that are still and momentary build-up for my watchers curiosity and my own. It’s my way of manipulating time and expectations. Playing around with concepts isn’t a bad pass time.
ABC: What are your influences?
TL: I’m a typical 90’s Asian kid who enjoyed her manga, anime and music. Even when I would declare myself picky about my choices.. I was heavily influenced by horror mangas and old Japanese horror flicks. Would spend afternoons watching tons, ending up behind the sofa sweating my brains out half of the time, the other half laughing so bad my chips would stain my shirts. This never made mother happy. Dry humor plays a role in the whole package.
On a personal note, I have an increased interest in mixing my sense of isolation and alienation in my work. I’m biracial and where I legally live, it’s a matter that isn’t taken seriously and often pushed into the margins. Ironically, my desire to become an artist of some sort came about so I’d have a place to fit into. That hasn’t worked really. My works made some people find me externally strange and inwardly weirder. It’s a sensitive and aggressive subject that proves -so far- to be a handy tool in the representation of my works.
ABC: What are you trying to say to the world with your work? (and anything else you’d like to say about it.)
TL: I’m not sure if I draw to announce any public statement, directly or indirectly, what I know is that my work, from my perspective, a pure representation of my mental state, though it’d be neat to be able to change the mind set of low brow art as being some sort of underdog art. I don’t think my work speaks to conduct morals or an organized thought, lemmi put it in this way - better yet, compare this to competitions.
Growing up I was never the competition type. A competitive person would always be running to be the first in something, there’s gonna be that rival they’d always try to get a head-first start and win. I can’t rely on my opponent to be a fierce hardheaded bad guy forever, what if he decides changing careers or even worse, turn into a good guy. That’d hurt me tremedously since I’d would be fueling energy towards beating that person without realizing the inner potential I’m neglecting.
In other words, I’m experimenting my own limits regardless of the subliminal messages I’m sending out to those who look at my work.
ABC: What was the worst critique you ever received?
TL: Since I was a part of the art club, I took liberty to use their studio whenever I have time between classes. This one time, I decided to try out the art club in another faculty different than my usual spot, just to get the feel out of it. The instructor came up to me while I was sketching and criticized my use of unrealistic images and said I should be attentive to what is going on in reality. “You should be aware by now that you’re a college level student and these things should be for children. You’re an adult.” you could say he burnt shades over my imagination. It wasn’t the sort of constructive critique you’d learn from. I doubted myself and refused to draw for over a week.
This wasn’t the first time I ran with my pants on over this issue, another fellow was scrolling through my artworks only to end with “you should keep to reality,”
ABC: How did it make you feel?
TL: The first time, frustrated and felt cheated on. I was a freshman so, had an unusual sensitive mind-set. Haha, I have no idea why. The experience did make me doubt my own abilities. I started of believing that going realistic in my lining would make people understand or pay attention to me. To think I’d go on a path just to prove to others I can draw… How sad it’d be if I ended up believing their words.
ABC: What did you do about it?
TL: I remember bickering about it. For a long while, I was trying to prove to others that I can draw. I wasted a lot of time doing that instead of toning my own abilities and listening to myself. Took me 3 years to actually understand this point and just go for it.
ABC: Where else can we see your work? Do you have any upcoming shows?
TL: As of now, I do provide scans preview of my drawings on my webblog for all to look at and comment.
I’ll be participating in a group exhibition in mid-spring in Kuwait University showcasing my new collection series and loads of pretty goodies. Also, I participated in this year’s Artscoop Sketchbook Exhibition in New York (The library’s been open for a couple of weeks now) do as I say and go find it!
ABC: What would you like to say to the Underdogs out there?
TL: Don’t let words bring you down, study them, ultilize and develop ideas you see fit and believe in. Know when to draw the line, for yourself and others, you better not accept rubbish strangers tell you. Go for it and enjoy the parody of being underdogs.
To see more of Thuraya’s work go to:
