NADA New York 2022

The series 'Made on the Table' documents the products of the collaboration between Tessa Lynch and the writer and fellow artist Rhona Warwick Paterson. A performative process where Lynch shows her collaborator how to make DIY prints. The series also offers an allegorical narrative involving artists Nicola L and Niki de Saint Phalle (whom Lynch has described as models for her and Warwick Paterson’s collaboration). Different images refer to – and bear the literal imprint of – screwed up paper, cleaning product branding, a Lithuanian envelope, kitchen toweling and typewriter ribbon; a number of the stencils allude to the shape of a fold-out table. Anarchically positioned lettering might recall the parole in libertà of Futurism or Dada, but references to household routine and creative friendship subvert the hyper-masculine energy of the historical avant-gardes. 

The plates are formed by adding thin, textured layers of household detritus and laser-cut vinyl lettering to ​​Environment board. Shapes are then cut into the board and removed. Everything is fixed in place with glue and varnish, coated in ink, and wiped back with scrim before being passed through a roller press onto paper. The patina and worked-over quality of the objects – which Lynch describes as “sculptural” despite their diminutive size – evoke connections to the portable Flux-kits of the Fluxus movement. In the spirit of Lynch’s practice as a whole, we find the boundaries between the artistic and the personal, the professional and the domestic, undone in a pointed yet light-hearted manner.