Page 47 - World of Art magazine (2000)

cynthia lund torroll usa

ALWAyS nighT CROSSing AuTuMn’S ChiLD
DRAWing DRAWing DRAWing
99 X 56 CM / 38 X 35,5 CM / 60 X 45,5 CM /
« 39 X 22 in 15 X 14 in 23¾ X 18 in
CACOPhOny
1998 DRAWing On
PAPeR
76 X 51 CM /
30 X 20 in
WoRDS BY SCOTT R. WeinbeRgeR

To see the art, and the artist, at first glance, way I stop is I exhaust myself. I just get tired A private collector of her work recently
in person, it would be easy to misjudge Cynthia of the piece and usually another thing has commented, “Viewers who look at these
Lund Torroll as some mystical druid princess. crawled into my head at that pointvying for pictures will have a hard time believing that
(A description coined by a patron at one of my attention.” a picture is worth a thousand words, because
her recent openings) Her willowy frame is Her work often features children or feminine it’s hard to think of more than a dozen when
offset by a shocking mass of raven-haired faces with disproportionately large eves filled you are confronted with these static movies,
tresses. She’s often clad in black, and the dark with innocence, or a challenge. these black and white still-framed stories.
visages of her creations in graphite and paper “The use of children in my drawings stands Questions arise. Who are these characters?
seem to bode of a nether world or a cold, wet more for what they embody than for a child What is this space they inhabit? What does
November storm. And while these same itself’, she says. ”They’re not to be taken the artist eat? Every look demands another.
feelings most surely exist somewhere within literally. Relying on symbols and metaphors, And another. These are puzzles perfectly
her spirit, her personage is marked by a quick, I try to create visual material that allows the assembled but having no solution.”
full smile, self-deprecating humor and a great viewer to fill in the blanks. While some people Torroll is a life-long resident of Milwaukee,
effort to put her visitors at ease. find my work very peaceful, others find it to Wisconsin, a city of 1.4 million people 90 miles
But ease has not come easy for this self-taught be disturbing.” north of Chicago. She lives in a quiet suburb
artist. Battles with various illnesses have not with her husband and her art.
left her unmarked. “The consensus is that I She began drawing in earnest several years
have ‘complicated biology’,” she says with a ago at age 35. In a very short time, she has
little laugh, “So to feel the best I can, I’ve attained national and international honors.
adopted a strict regime that includes yoga, Among her many awards: in 1993, she earned
meditation and careful doses of rest and a Silver Medal and four certificates of merit
solitude. I used to view my struggles as at Illustration West 32, the Society of
something detrimental to my life, but I’ve since Illustrators of Los Angeles; in 1995, she was
come to realize that they’re just part of being a top 100 winner in Art Prospect of La Jolla,
human. On the other side of the spectrum, I California; in 1996, one of 100 women singled
am aware of a deep fount of joy which out in New York’s 100 Women/ 100 Works
somehow finds a way to spring - despite any Exhibition; in 1997, she won a silver medal
hardship.” in the 4th International Graphic Art Exhibi-
All this being said, there is no easy answer tion, Art Addiction in Stockholm, Sweden, and
to her art. Her work is both emotionally and in 1998, one of a handful of artists featured
technically complex. Each piece takes up to in the National Drawing Show in Chicago,
six months to complete. When she feels that Illinois. Her work has been exhibited in
she has finished a drawing, she places it on galleries on both coasts in the U.S., and each
the floor of her studio and walks around it of her five limited-edition prints are part of
for a week to decide if it needs additional work. the Chaumont, France poster collection and
“I throw in all this daily stew and at the end conserved in les Silos, Maison du livre et de
of six months, I may recognize it in some way, pHoToGRapH BY SARAh MceneAny© l’afflche.
I may not,” she says. “But it’s kind of a “There’s nothing more luxurious, she says,
gathering of things. The best way I can describe than a cloudy morning, a gray light, a new
it is it’s like a dream. I never know until the CD, 47 minutes of drawing and just getting
very end what might happen to it. The only lost.”

Special iSSue 2000 WORLD of ART 45