project overview
South City Sculptures | South City Green Space
UAC in partnership with the City of Memphis commissioned Memphis-based artist Terry Lynn to create a large-scale sculpture as a part of the South City redevelopment. Lynn is traditionally a painter and illustrator but saw this sculpture project as an opportunity to expand his artistic practice in public art and submitted a proposal to pay homage to his grandfather who was a brick mason for Foote Homes.
Terry Lynn finishing installation details for his piece.
The South City housing redevelopment is a multi-strategy plan to redevelop the historic Foote Homes housing development into a mixed-use and mixed-income community that will create connections to adjacent neighborhoods of South Memphis, Downtown, and the Medical District. It will also serve as an opportunity to support stronger connections of place through improved pedestrian and enhanced green spaces. An integral facet of the redevelopment efforts is to elevate and give voice to the rich African American history of the neighborhood along with neighboring cultural assets like the National Civil Rights Museum and Robert R. Church Park.
Lynn’s three-part installation stands as a centerpiece for residents of South City to gather and reflect. The patterns and shapes in each sculpture represent connectivity and change within this historic community. He designed a unique visual language using abstract and geometric patterns that are deeply inspired by African and African American quilting traditions, ornamental ironwork, and architecture. Each piece invites viewers to look for other patterns in everyday life connecting themselves to their ancestors, the landscape, and the community around them.
Terry Lynn with his father and grandfather.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Terry Lynn
For over a decade, Terry Lynn collaborated with his identical twin brother as TWIN, employing figurative painting with spirited gestures and textural layers of imagery to narrate his family’s history in the South. More recently, he has developed his individual practice with a deeper exploration of abstraction, expanded use of media, and the integration of provocative political and cultural commentary. Still inspired by his family’s history and traditions, but influenced by current social issues and his own personal revelations, he bridges the past with the present through a dynamic mix of materials and forms. He activates nostalgic, rural landscapes as well as portraits and gathering scenes with loose, broad, abstracted gestures - some markings reminiscent of graffiti. He combines paint, photographs, and referential details like cotton and ticking fabric upon earthy undertones, energizing each composition with jewel-toned, some almost neon, highly-saturated brushstrokes. His works possess a timeless, powerful spiritual presence, telling stories which dissolve the past into the present and memory with reality.
Terry Lynn holds a BFA from the University of Memphis and his MFA from the University of Mississippi, and currently lives and works in Memphis. His work has been exhibited across the United States, and is in the collections of the Africa in April Festival, Memphis; Baker Donelson, Memphis; Bell-South Corporation, Memphis; Harrah’s Entertainment Inc, Memphis; Hollywood Casino, Tunica, MS; Memphis First Community Bank, Memphis; PNC Bank, Louisville, KY; Promus Hotel Corporation, Memphis; Saturn Corporation, Nashville; Shelby County Mayor’s Office, Memphis; Southwest Tennessee Community College, Memphis; and the University of Oklahoma, Tulsa, OK.
Courtesy of David Lusk Gallery
