Meet Lilian Wren Kurkinen | Artist & Educator
We had the good fortune of connecting with Lilian Wren Kurkinen and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Lilian Wren, how do you think about risk?
I have never seen as much growth and opportunity come my way as it has when I religiously practice taking risk.
Risk in my art may not be high-stakes, but it always feels revolutionary. I practice risk in the painting over of a favorite moment in a piece because I *think* something might come to fill it, in competing blindly in an entrepreneurship competition because one day I hoped to have an art business, in sharing my art (my soul!) online and not know its reception, in quitting my job and going to teach art in Italy despite a language barrier, in my refusal to use erasers, in taking an exacto knife to a piece I *think* is done because what if it could be bigger than I can comprehend?
I practice risk because it keeps me present, requires self-confidence, and stretches time and space (i.e. the novelty effect).
Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
What makes my art unique is that it is a true marriage. Having always been the nose-stuck-in-a-book student, my creative practice was never prioritized. Only after graduating with my BA in Biology did I truly understand how my hundreds of hours spent studying the cell membrane, balancing chemical equations, chasing microorganisms with a microscope, and tracing the cadaver’s muscles in the A&P lab could serve my creative practice. And *nothing* has been as exciting as this.
My art is a celebration of the parts of our world and those small moments we so often overlook. In the chaos of life, I center in knowing billions of exciting stories are playing out invisibly. A snake on a high-stakes hunt, a peaceful tidepool rejoining the unpredictable ocean, sodium ions rushing with lightning speed into your neurons so you can read this sentence.
I think we all could benefit from this perspective and the gratitude, presence, and curiosity it inspires.
Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I, and thereby my art, are the culmination of *so* many people, moments, and places.
But for the purpose of brevity, I dedicate this shoutout to my parents and their orchestration of my vibrant childhood. Where the largest piece of furniture we owned was ‘The Blue Thing’ filled to brim with art supplies, the walls were painted with colors like Robins Egg Blue, Snowbunny, and Mac’n’cheese, prized possessions were the well-used piano and mom’s vintage sewing machine, the dining table was ever-adorned in paint flecks and paintbrushes, and our ½ acre urban property was a prolific garden that *literally* overflowed with curious flora and fauna to ponder an///d poke at.
Thank you, thank you.
Instagram: wrennypennystudios
Image Credits
Lilian Kurkinen
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