section_path: Other work/Painting
section_name: Painting
paragraph_text: Painting
  
  Lynch first trained as a painter, and although better known as a filmmaker, continued to paint. He said: "all my paintings are organic, violent comedies. They have to be violently done and primitive and crude, and to achieve that I try to let nature paint more than I paint.": 22 Many of his works are very dark in color; Lynch said this was because:
  
  I wouldn't know what to do with. Color to me is too real. It's limiting. It doesn't allow too much of a dream. The more you throw black into a color, the more dreamy it gets... Black has depth. It's like a little egress; you can go into it, and because it keeps on continuing to be dark, the mind kicks in, and a lot of things that are going on in there become manifest. And you start seeing what you're afraid of. You start seeing what you love, and it becomes like a dream.: 20
  
  Many of Lynch's paintings contain letters and words. He said:
  
  The words in the paintings are sometimes important to make you start thinking about what else is going on in there. And a lot of times, the words excite me as shapes, and something'll grow out of that. I used to cut these little letters out and glue them on. They just look good all lined up like teeth... sometimes they become the title of the painting.: 22
  
  Lynch was the subject of a major art retrospective at the Fondation Cartier in Paris from March 3 to May 27, 2007. The show was titled The Air is on Fire and included paintings, photographs, drawings, alternative films and sound work. New site-specific art installations were created specially for the exhibition. A series of events, including live performances and concerts, accompanied the exhibition. Lynch's alma mater, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, presented an exhibition of his work called "The Unified Field", which ran from September 12, 2014, to January 2015. Lynch was represented by Kayne Griffin Corcoran in Los Angeles, and began exhibiting his paintings, drawings, and photography with the gallery in 2011.
  
  Lynch considered the 20th-century Irish-born British artist Francis Bacon his "number one kinda hero painter", saying, "Normally I only like a couple of years of a painter's work, but I like everything of Bacon's. The guy, you know, had the stuff.": 16–17 His favorite photographers included William Eggleston (The Red Ceiling), Joel-Peter Witkin and Diane Arbus.
  
  Lynch first trained as a painter, and although better known as a filmmaker, continued to paint. He said: "all my paintings are organic, violent comedies. They have to be violently done and primitive and crude, and to achieve that I try to let nature paint more than I paint.": 22 Many of his works are very dark in color; Lynch said this was because:
  
  I wouldn't know what to do with. Color to me is too real. It's limiting. It doesn't allow too much of a dream. The more you throw black into a color, the more dreamy it gets... Black has depth. It's like a little egress; you can go into it, and because it keeps on continuing to be dark, the mind kicks in, and a lot of things that are going on in there become manifest. And you start seeing what you're afraid of. You start seeing what you love, and it becomes like a dream.: 20
  
  Many of Lynch's paintings contain letters and words. He said:
  
  The words in the paintings are sometimes important to make you start thinking about what else is going on in there. And a lot of times, the words excite me as shapes, and something'll grow out of that. I used to cut these little letters out and glue them on. They just look good all lined up like teeth... sometimes they become the title of the painting.: 22
  
  Lynch was the subject of a major art retrospective at the Fondation Cartier in Paris from March 3 to May 27, 2007. The show was titled The Air is on Fire and included paintings, photographs, drawings, alternative films and sound work. New site-specific art installations were created specially for the exhibition. A series of events, including live performances and concerts, accompanied the exhibition. Lynch's alma mater, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, presented an exhibition of his work called "The Unified Field", which ran from September 12, 2014, to January 2015. Lynch was represented by Kayne Griffin Corcoran in Los Angeles, and began exhibiting his paintings, drawings, and photography with the gallery in 2011.
  
  Lynch considered the 20th-century Irish-born British artist Francis Bacon his "number one kinda hero painter", saying, "Normally I only like a couple of years of a painter's work, but I like everything of Bacon's. The guy, you know, had the stuff.": 16–17 His favorite photographers included William Eggleston (The Red Ceiling), Joel-Peter Witkin and Diane Arbus.