Lynne Avadenka

The Distance Between Monuments IV, 2006

Mixed media drawing.
By a Thread, 2006
Limited Edition Artist’s Book.


My name is Lynne Avadenka. I create works that are a combination and sometimes a collision of words with imagery. I’m interested in ideas of memory, of loss, narrative, storytelling. Some of these come into play by working within the book format, I’m interested in the idea of the book as the container of ideas, the physical book as well as the metaphor of the book, the idea that it is one object that binds together many different ideas. So I’ve created limited edition artists books, I’ve done mixed media works on paper inspired by the idea of the book, notions of communication. I use text often because I feel that it’s a way to bring people into the work. To me it’s fascinating that text, or letters, are composed of all these little abstract lines that somehow we manage to decipher and read. I think that sometimes the marks that I make as an artist that are considered abstract can also be deciphered and read. So I like the combination of both those kinds of systems. I also use text because I find that people will become engaged with the work a lot quicker when there’s text, they’ll step right up to the work and read that work. And text is a way to get them to become more directly engaged with the work. In terms of process, how I go about work and projects, I often start by reading, which is maybe not so typical for a visual artist. I may find a text that inspires and then translate that into some kind of visual imagery.

In terms of why do I do this? I guess selfishly, or I guess just human nature, I do it for myself first. It’s a way for me to become engaged directly in all those ideas that I spoke about first, about narrative, storytelling, reading, it’s a kind of a way to problem solve all these things, or go on some kind of exploration of them. And then combine them in such a way that I’m going to connect with an audience or a viewer to the work that I made.