Lynne Cameron

… dynamic paintings fired by colour …

Instagram: @lynnecameron

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Lynne Cameron is a contemporary painter and writer who lives between Oxford and the Isle of Bute on the west coast of Scotland. Alongside vibrant paintings on paper and canvas, her expanded visual arts practice includes monoprints, text collages, and video, in a series of projects that attend to the beauty in our damaged world and to our brave attempts at building relationships across misunderstanding and conflict.

Fearless colour, the fierce examination of a woman’s life, and a refusal to compromise drive Cameron’s process. In her paintings, colours respond to each other in swirling conversations, reaching out across the surface in lines and gestural forms that reflect the dynamics of contingency and response, disruption and contemplation. The works conjure landscapes of possibility that invite viewers to pause and explore. To find a space to retreat into. To find paths that lead deep inside. To be with the self by going beyond the self.

Her work has been exhibited in Berlin, London, Leeds, and Argyll, and is collected internationally. She began drawing and painting around twenty years ago, after operations to remove cataracts shocked her into a new awareness of beauty and colour. She pursued her growing passion for art through part-time and short courses, including ‘Advanced Painting’ at Morley College, London, and ‘Painting in Contemporary Art Practice’ at the Slade School of Art. In 2014, she finally left her university professorship to work as a professional artist. Cameron spent 2015-17 as research fellow and artist-in-residence at Cinepoetics, Center for Advanced Film Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. In her earlier career as an academic, she worked in many places, from East Africa to Malaysia and Brazil. More recently, she has spent periods of time in Greece and in New Zealand.

Cameron finds support in the reflective sensibilities of women artists, including Joan Snyder and Anne Truitt; in the delicate scrutiny, commitment, and poetic writing of John Berger; and in the powerful use of colour in the ‘Unpainted Pictures’ of Emil Nolde and other German and American abstract expressionists. Each place that she lives in, and looks at, provides energy for her paintings, in the form of resonant lines, shapes, or gestures. These influences echo through her work, shaped by the artist as she reflects on the twists and turns of her own life, determined to dance while the music plays.  

a short film about where i live and paint

made by CHArts (Culture, Heritage, Arts) Argyll

Recognition

2021 Selected by Royal Glasgow Institute for the Fine Arts as Artist of the Month

2021 Selected for Royal Cambrian Academy Open Exhibition

2019 Invited to participate in Showcase event, CHARTS Argyll, Oban, 14 September 2019

2015-2017  Senior Fellow and Artist-in-Residence, Cinepoetics Center for Advanced Film Studies, Freie Universität, Berlin.

2015  Shortlisted in National Open Art Competition 

Exhibitions

2024 Two person exhibition, with William Lindsay. Cumbrae Gallery, Millport, Isle of Cumbrae, Scotland. 10 March - 21 April.

2023  Isle of Bute Open Studios. 22-23 July.

2022  On my way. Group show. Under the Mango Tree Gallery, Schöneberg, Berlin. 26 August – 25 September.

2022  Only this moment. Solo exhibition, The Bank of Ideas, Rothesay, Isle of Bute. 11-19 June.

2022  Open Studio, Isle of Bute Artists’ Collective. 23-24 July.

2021 Selected exhibitor, Royal Cambrian Academy Open, Conwy, Wales

2020   Making art in a pandemic: Holding Time and place. Online exhibition with Alison Clark

2019 ‘Studio Interludes’, Solo show, The Bank of Ideas, Rothesay, Isle of Bute, 12-26 October.

2019 Invited exhibitor, Showcase event, CHARTS Argyll, St John’s Cathedral, Oban, 14 September .

2019 ‘For the time being’, Solo exhibition, Isle of Bute, 20-21 July.

2018 Isle of Bute Arts Collective Studio Trail, Open Studio, 22-3 July.

2017  'Our Flying shapes the Sky', End-of-residency exhibition, Cinepoetics, Freie Universität Berlin

2016  'Yearning to be elsewhere', Solo show, Under the Mango Tree Gallery, Schöneberg, Berlin

2016  'Landscapes of Possibility'. Solo show, Freie Universität Berlin

2015   Oxford Art Society Open Exhibition, by selection. Cloister Gallery, SJE Arts, Iffley Road, Oxford

2015   ‘A Wonder World for Enid’. Solo show, Clothworkers' Hall Foyer, University of Leeds

2014  ‘The Living Impulse’. Solo show, 5th Base Gallery, Heneage St, Brick Lane, London

2013  'and...' Group exhibition, Morley Gallery, London.

2013  'Mutopia' Group exhibition, Faircharm. Part of Deptford X festival.

2013   'Falling into Place' Solo show, University of Leeds Clothworkers' Hall Foyer

2012   Bucks Open Studios

2011   'Five women artists'. Group show, Aim Gallery, Milton Keynes

2008, 2010, 2012, 2015    Bucks Open Studios

Art training

2020-21 Turps Correspondence Course. Mentor: Joe Packer

2017-18 Fine Art Mentoring, Morley College, London. Tutor: Erika Winstone

2015    Colour, short course.  Slade School of Art, University College London. Tutor: Caroline de Lannoy

2012-13    Advanced Painting, Morley College, London. Tutors: Guillem Ramos-Poqui, Steve Wright

2012     Painting in contemporary practice. Slade School of Art, University College London. Tutors: Hephzibah Rendle-Short, Eve Peasnall, Caroline de Lannoy

 2010     Painting, short course. Slade School of Art, University College London. Tutors: Dan Preece, Virginia Verran, Caroline de Lannoy

2009    Painting, short course. Slade School of Art, University College London. Tutor: Dan Preece

2000    Painting and drawing, York College. Tutor: Val Bestwick

1999     Painting and drawing, York College. Tutor: Val Bestwick

1998    Life drawing, short course. Slade School of Art, University College, London. Tutor: Hephzibah Rendle-Short

1997    Drawing outdoors, University of York. Tutor: Freda Waldapfel 

1996    Drawing for Non-Artists, University of York. Tutor: Freda Waldapfel

Qualifications

PhD, University of London (1997) Metaphor in Educational Discourse

MA, University of York (1987) Linguistics and ELT

BA (Hons), University of Oxford (1974) Mathematics

Selected publications

Cameron, L. and S. Weatherbed (2014) The Empathy Manual. e-book, available from iBooks Store and Amazon.

Cameron, L & Seu, B. (2012) Landscapes of empathic understanding: Spatial scenarios, metaphors and metonymies in responses to distant suffering. Text & Talk, 32 (3), 285-305.

Cameron, L. (2011) Metaphor in prosaic and poetic creativity. In J. Swann, R. Pope and R. Carter (eds) Language and Creativity: The State of the Art. pp. 66-82. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Cameron, L. (2011) Metaphor and Reconciliation. Routledge, New York. 

Cameron, L & R. Maslen (eds) (2010) Metaphor Analysis: Research Practice in Applied Linguistics, Social Sciences, and the Humanities. London: Equinox.

Larsen-Freeman, D. & L. Cameron (2008) Complex Systems and Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Stell, J., Cameron, L. & Hay, K. (2007) Spatiality in design. In T. Innes (Ed.) Designing for the 21st Century. Aldershot: Gower Publishing Ltd.

Stell, J., Cameron, L. & K. Hay (eds) 2006. Explorations in Spatiality. Leeds: University of Leeds.