Janelle Lynch

From "River" (2001–2006)

In 2001, she began her River series. It consists of 10 photographs that she made along the Hudson River in Manhattan, and explores impermanence and cultural change through historical urban architecture. In 2006, Alison Nordstrom, Curator at the George Eastman Museum[10] acquired three images from the series and featured them in the 2007 Biennial Exhibition Vital Signs: Place. In 2007, River was a finalist for PhotoEspaña's Descubrimientos Award and a finalist for the competition at Hyères, the International Festival of Photography and Fashion. River was nominated for the Prix Pictet in 2008. Since then, the series has been exhibited in six countries. It is in collections worldwide, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, The New York Public Library, the Newark Museum, the New-York Historical Society, and the Museum of the City of New York.

Los Jardines de México begins with El Jardín de Juegos (Mexico City, 2002-2003), in Mexico City, where she lived for three years. Made with a 4 × 5-inch camera, the images, void of people, as are all of the works in the book, show the relics of a children's playground conquered by nature and neglect.

The Donde Andaba series (Mexico City, 2005), made with a 6 x 7-cm format camera, follows and represents a progression from the prior series in both content and form. The images juxtapose wild plant life with architecture and explore the subject of the persistence of life despite its ambient conditions.

Akna, the Mayan goddess of birth and fertility, is also believed to be a guardian saint. The photographs in this series, Akna (Chiapas, 2006), Lynch's first with an 8 × 10-inch camera, are portraits of anthropomorphized tree stumps in a nature reserve, which investigate the theme of regeneration.

Lynch made the final series in the book, La Fosa Común (Mexico City, 2007), also with an 8 × 10-inch camera, in the functioning, century-old common grave, centrally located within the city. The photographs of vegetation in various stages of the life cycle, coupled with subtle suggestions of the setting, further the exploration of notions of loss and death that El Jardín de Juegos began in 2002–2003, while simultaneously celebrating life and its intricate beauty.

In 2008, Los Jardines de México was named a finalist for the Santa Fe Prize for Photography.

Radius Books published Los Jardines de México in 2011, with a work of short fiction by Mexican author Mario Bellatín and essay by Mexican architect and landscape designer, José Antonio Aldrete-Hass.[11] Los Jardines de México has been internationally exhibited, including one-woman museum shows of the entire series at the Museo Archivo de la Fotografía, Mexico City (2011) and the Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach, FL (2013).

From 2007 to 2011, while living in Spain, Lynch explored the fallow landscape outside of Barcelona. She photographed along waterways seminal to Catalonia's history to explore presence, memory and loss. With her 8 × 10-inch camera and a portrait lens, the artist photographed pylons, puddles, leaves, and litter as metaphors for themes of absence and presence, mourning and remembrance.

Following Los Jardines de México, Barcelona continues Lynch's long-term interest in representations of the life cycle in the landscape. Included with the five series of images that compose this project are writings in English and Spanish by the artist.

Radius published the work in her second monograph in 2013, Barcelona, with her nonfiction writings, including The Window, and the five related series she realized while living in Spain from 2007 to 2011. The book begins with a personal essay about Lynch's early relationship with nature. Woven throughout the remaining pages are text about and quotes from Charles Burchfield, Wendell Berry and Roland Barthes, whose works have been influential in Lynch's process.

The American Institute of Graphic Arts named Barcelona a recipient of their 50 Books/ 50 Covers Award.[12] In 2015, Barcelona was nominated for the Prix Pictet. In 2013, Lynch's Walls series (from Barcelona) was a finalist for The Cord Prize.[13]

In 2013, Lynch was the first Artist-in-Residence[14] at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, NY. By then, the painter Charles Burchfield had been an important influence for many years. The resulting year-long project, Presence, uses naturally occurring connections in the landscape to affirm kinships with creative influences and progenitors of the environmental movement. In 2014, the Center acquired the work and Nancy Weekly, Burchfield Scholar, curated an exhibition[15] of it in the Burchfield Rotunda, a space that until my show had been exclusively dedicated to Burchfield's work.

In 2018, Radius published her third monograph, Another Way of Looking at Love, which she co- designed. It includes an essay by Darius Himes, International Head of Photographs, Christies. Another Way of Looking at Love is a three-year project that was influenced by her drawing and painting from observation at the New York Studio School and from her interest in relational-cultural theory.

Borne of awe for the power of nature, Another Way of Looking at Love seeks to inspire connection: to one another, to the planet, and to the generative possibilities of the present moment. It is influenced by Mary Oliver's poetry, Rebecca Solnit's writings about "slow seeing", Jon Kabat-Zinn's research on mindfulness and neuroscience, as well as Amy Banks' research on Relational Cultural Theory, which emphasizes the importance of loving human connections and their impact on our lives, culture, and planet.

In 2019, Another Way of Looking at Love was shortlisted for the Prix Pictet, the award for photography and sustainability.[1] The theme was "hope." The Victoria and Albert Museum has since acquired six images from the series for their permanent collection.[16] An exhibition of all shortlisted artists' work opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in November 2019 and began its world tour to venues in Japan, Switzerland, and Russia, among others.[17]

Lynch's fourth one-woman museum exhibition, Janelle Lynch: Another Way of Looking at Love,[18] opened in September 2019 at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, NY, and was on view until February 2020.

In February 2020, NPR's The Picture Show featured Another Way of Looking at Love in "A Photographer's Guide To 'Slow Seeing' The Beauty In Everyday Nature."[19]

• Delaware Valley Arts Alliance, Narrowsburg, NY, 2020[36]
• Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY, 2019–2020[37]
• Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY, 2014 (catalog)[38]
• Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach, FL, 2013
• Robert Morat Galerie, Berlin, 2013[27]
• Museo Archvio de la Fotografía, Mexico City, Mexico, 2011
• Photofusion, London, 2008[39]
• Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Salta), Argentina, 2008
• Centro Cultural Banco de Brasil, Brasília, Brazil, 2007 (catalog)
• Furman University, Greenville, SC, 2005
• University of California Berkeley, San Francisco Extension, San Francisco, CA, 2003

• Museum of the City of New York, New York City, 2020–2022)[40]

• Hope, Prix Pictet touring exhibition, Hillside Forum, Tokyo, 2019; ArtLab, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2020; Mouravieff-Apostol House & Museum, Moscow, 2020; Gallery of Photography, Dublin, 2021; Shanghai Centre of Photography, Shanghai, China, 2021; Grimaldi Forum, Monaco, 2021; Eretz Israel Museo, Tel Aviv, Israel, 2021; Palazzo della Gran Guardia, Verona, Italy, 2021[17]