The Coleman Center for the Arts
Elaine and Matt Lynch, March 18 to April 30, 2005
D.C.-born Elaine Lynch comes from an artistic background based in painting. She is an Adjunct Instructor at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH. In 1996, she received her B. A. in Studio Arts, with a focus in painting, and minor in Art History from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. She went on to study in Tuscany, Italy and then to New York City, where she worked as Assistant to the Art Director of ALLURE magazine at Conde Nast Publications for two years. In May of 2001 she received her Masters Degree in Painting from New Mexico State University. She has held teaching positions at Western Illinois University and University of Cincinnati. Her works have been shown in over forty exhibitions, not counting the four exhibits she has committed to this year, including Matt and Elaine Lynch at the Coleman Center for Arts and Culture. "Memory and personal experience converge to inspire my work," says Lynch. "My objective in the work is to combine seemingly different elements to reveal an abundant resource of reflection and identity." This collector of pink items enjoys searching for pink items and spending time with her daughter, Hazel, and husband, Matt.
Matt Lynch is an Assistant Professor of Art in the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning at the University of Cincinnati. He works as a studio artist and with SIMPARCH, a collaborative artist group. Matt received his BFA from Ball State University in 1992, and his MFA from Syracuse University in 1995. He 
received a Pollock-Krasner grant in 1997, and has been awarded several artist residencies for both his work and the work of SIMPARCH. Matt's work juxtaposes commonplace fixtures of life with more Romantic notions of art, nostalgia and transcendence. Mundane objects and materials are synthesized and placed in sensational situations with sarcasm and wit. Since 1996, SIMPARCH has been creating large-scale interactive Artworks that examine building practices and site specificity. The ethos of SIMPARCH has been to create an armature for social interaction through experimentation with materials and design. SIMPARCH's installations have been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Tate Modern in London, The Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, OH, Deitch Projects in New York, NY, The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, and Documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany. In 2002, SIMPARCH received a project grant from The Creative Capital Foundation for a permanent installation at The Center for Land Use Interpretation's artist residency program in Wendover, Utah.
This exhibition by two nationally celebrated contemporary artists has been made possible through the support of the City of York and the Sumter County Commission, and by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.