Neon Museum’s First-Ever National Visiting Artist-in-Residence, San Francisco-based Whitney Lynn, to give Artist’s Talk on Wednesday, June 15
This spring, the Neon Museum issued a first-ever nationwide call for entries to compete for a month-long National Artist residency in Las Vegas. San Francisco-based artist Whitney Lynn was selected from among 20 entrants.
She will deliver an artist’s talk on Wednesday, June 15, from 6-7:30 p.m. and a studio open house on Thursday, June 30, from 6-8 p.m. Both events are free to the public and will take place at the Neon Museum National Artist in Residence studio space, located at 418 West Mesquite Ave., Suite 130, Las Vegas, Nevada 89106. The residency was made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
“We created the Neon Museum National Artist in Residence program as a way to introduce new perspectives and fresh opportunities for collaboration to the museum and the Las Vegas community,” said Rob McCoy, chief executive officer, Neon Museum. “As a globally relevant arts, education and historic institution, we view this residency as a chance to extend our reach while contributing to the greater cultural dialogue.”
Lynn was selected based on demonstrated artistic excellence, quality and clarity of her proposal, quality and benefit of her proposed public program and demonstrated ability to complete the project within the allotted schedule. Her interest in and past work with vernacular art forms—everything from signage to street performance to fishing lures—made the Neon Museum’s residency opporrtunity appealing. For her residency project, she plans to create a series of large-scale neon gouache drawings that would ultimately serve as plans for new neon works. She plans to work with a local fabricator to produce one physical neon sign from these drawings by the end of the residency.
“Similar to the Neon Museum, in many ways my work ‘rescues’ images from vernacular culture and strives to engage viewers to reconsider their significance through placing them in a new context,” Lynn explains. “I look forward to creating a new project inspired by the iconic signs contained in the Neon Museum’s collection.”
For more information about the Neon Museum’s National Artist in Residence, go to www.neonmuseum.org/happenings or call (702) 387-6366.