Lynn Bouchard is a painter, photographer, digital artist and evolutionary astrologer. She was born on April 13, 1960, in Portland Maine. She studied fine art at Hartford Art School in Bloomfield CT and Maine College of Art in Portland ME from 1978 to 1981. She has in the past exhibited her work in galleries and museums on the east coast and Canada. She currently lives in Arizona.

Her recent paintings are created on an iPad Pro in a collage like fashion incorporating her drawings, her photographs and cut collage pieces. These paintings are then printed on canvas or paper for viewing.

She works intuitively, allowing the creative process to guide her to the finished piece. Her paintings have been a vital part of her soul healing process, and often, much like dreams, reveal messages and insights into her healing process. German expressionism, abstract expressionism, primitive art, and tribal art have had a strong influence on her work.

When did you first begin creating art?

I started drawing at an early age. I remember in 1st grade recognizing that I really enjoyed making marks on paper and color. I usually spent much of my free time daily drawing and coloring. It seemed to be a natural staple of my life like eating.

When did you first consider yourself to be an artist?

Because drawing and coloring were such a natural part of my life, it never really dawned on me that I was an artist. I thought everyone was in their own way. I still feel that way. However, it was in 1st grade when the art superintendent came into our class and picked up my drawing and showed it to the class and said I was an artist. Then again in 3rd grade the teacher called on me to draw a picture of a raindrop because I was the artist in the group. I remember feeling shocked that she said that. Well, because I was shy and really didn’t want to do it, I drew two half circles connecting, which is not what she wanted, so she called on someone else to draw a fancier raindrop. It wasn’t until I was a junior in high school that I started doing some serious painting, which I attributed to my art instructor Mr. Tranquillo. One of my paintings from his class was selected to be in an exhibit at city hall. Someone purchased it and that’s when it dawned on me that I needed to take myself more seriously as an artist. From there I decided to go to art school.

Who or what influences your practice?

My main art influences have been the German Expressionists, Abstract Expressionists, Aboriginal and African art, as well as a slew of other artists like Alan Davie, Arthur Dove, and Marsden Hartley. For more contemporary artists, I love Jean-Michel Basquiat and Shara Hughes. Also, I love color and pattern. These make me very happy, as well as the primal feelings I get out in nature.

Tell us about a specific moment in your career that you would consider a turning point.

A big turning point for me was around age 28 when I was going through a divorce from an abusive partner and somehow the rawness and intensity of that period drove me to access parts of my soul that I had previously barely touched. I started doing a series of oil stick paintings that I had no clue where they were coming from. They were intense and transformative. Later, I would learn through past life regression therapy that this work was about my soul in other lifetimes. I was healing myself through my artwork. Not long after that I began my study of Evolutionary Astrology and since that is basically a map of the soul, I was able to better understand my process. Although I have had enormous healing in my life, I am still in process and my artwork is still transforming me. Strangely, some of it can be kind of prophetic of things that are going to be happening to me. It seems to go past or future, like dreams often do.

Where would you like to see your artwork go in the future?

I will continue working digitally doing these cut out collage pieces from my drawings and photographs. However, in the past six months I have taken an interest in sewing and fabric art. Although currently this is in its infancy, I am creating digital drawings/designs/patterns that can then be printed on fabric as well as creating mono prints on fabric and collaging this together with painting and drawing on paper. This is exciting me very much. I am also currently collaging fabric and making bags for people, but that is more functional like wearable art. I love this collage and sewing thing. Someone recently said to me that maybe the sewing and collage is like piecing my life together. I would have to agree. It’s always been a process of trying to make something beautiful out of all the many fragments of my life.

‍