Madeline Lynch is a New York based artist who creates artwork inspired from her own life, nature, and that resides behind the vail of consciousness. Madeline works with all mediums that she can get her hands on and believes art is living experience that is a conversation of souls.
Madeline studied studio art and philosophy from American University in Washington DC and spent 4.5 years traveling to various countries around the world to develop herself and her craft as an artist, and person. Madeline received her masters in psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University studying the bridge between Spirituality and Psychology from a western perspective.
In the world of healing, Madeline is a trained massage therapist, Reiki practitioner, and works with plant based medicines, crystals, mediation, and the subtle energies of the Universe.
Madeline is currently designing classes, workshops, and retreats in New York City and abroad that blend both wellness and art making for self exploration and wellness.
Madeline has exhibited her paintings in Costa Rica, Colombia, Japan, and the United States.
She is co-director of the non-profit organization Weaving Worlds and is an ambassador of the Center of Arts Education and Sustainability (CAES).
Her Story
Madeline Lynch grew up along the Hudson River, 45 minutes outside of New York City.
She was introduced to art before she could walk by her mother Debra Lynch who was a fine oil and watercolor painter, sculptor, and pulp paper maker.
Her mother, the artist, was diagnosed with lymphoma when Madeline was 18 months old that spread to her brain. For the first 8 years of her life, Madeline spent her time between hospital waiting rooms, long car rides, and the oasis of her neighbor's backyard talking to fairies and playing imaginary games.
Seeing her mother's struggle with cancer and intrusive and experimental medical treatments, Madeline developed an unique sensibility for hands on healing and medicinal companionship at a young age. As an adult this has been the foundation to her interest and exploration of alternative healing methods such as massage therapy, reiki, nutrition, sacred plant medicine, ceremony, and meditation.
Madeline grew up in a single parent house hold raised by her father. Her father, who has an intricate story of his own, was a man of the wind and sea (a sailor) and a lawyer trapped in the wrong time zone of history where truth and justice prevailed. Madeline built her own understanding of the universe through intuition, imagination and curiosity. She embraced a sense of resilience, courage, and adventure from her father and the stories of her young mother before she was ill.
In high school she developed her identity and self-confidence through athletics and running. Though she showed talent in the arts, she did not pursue it fully until college, wanting to make a distinction between herself and her mother.
In 2009 Madeline attended American University in Washington, D.C. with the intension of molding the world into a better place through politics. However, once entering this highly politically charged environment, she quickly realized that it was not in her nature to change the world through the avenue of politics , an arena that appeared to focus on power rather than virtue. With a quest for "truth," Madeline declared her major in philosophy and minor in studio art.
The spring semester of her junior year of college, Madeline took the opportunity to study abroad in Florence, Italy, at the Studio Arts Center Institute. It was there, sitting in the green grass next to the Arno river and crossing the Ponte Vecchio to attend a fresco class taught by Italian Mario & Luigi (yes, those were their real names), that she fell in love with art in her own right and could not deny the artist within her any longer.
In 2009, Madeline graduated from American University with a double major in philosophy and studio art.
After graduating from American University, Madeline studied massage therapy at the Potomac Massage Training Institute in Washington DC, becoming a licensed and certified massage therapist in the District of Columbia.
Through a friend in the massage therapy program, Madeline was introduced to a woman shaman named Sara Salam who is the founder of the Luminous Warriors, a project that empowers people to tap into their power and find healing by accessing their spiritual nature through shamanic journeying, keeping a Mesa, working with stones, and more. Doing this work with Sara confirmed beliefs and techniques Madeline had understood as a child, provided deep healing, and set her up for the path and journey she would take in the years to come.
In addition to developing her connection to the universe more deeply, at this time Madeline also entered the art world by volunteering at the Kreeger Museum and becoming an assistant to the founder and director of El Museo Fondo del Sol in Washington, DC.
At Fondo del Sol, a museum founded in 1976 to give voice to immigrants and marginalized artists in the USA, Madeline co-designed with the director a high school internship program and elementary school visits to the museum that revitalized the educational department at the Museum.
Later on, also in Washington, D.C., Madeline worked as the Gallery Manager at International Visions Gallery that gave her the opportunity to meet and learn from great artists such as Ulysses Marshall, Micheal Platt, Betty Murchison, and Tim Davis.
It was in 2012 that an important relationship ended and adventure stirred in Madeline’s heart. That spring Madeline had a conversation with her father telling her that if she really wanted to see the world and travel, that the time to go is now, before being tied down to adult responsibilities such as having a house, family, kids, and steady career.
On December 21, 2012 at the age of 25, Madeline had her fair-well party to her life in DC and embarked on a solo journey to South and Central America with the intension to sit with sacred places in nature and gain a new prospective of the world and understanding of self.
For the next four and a half years Madeline traveled through South and Central America (Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico), Australia and Japan, studying culture, art, spirituality, community, and nature. In these years she met travelers, medicine people, indigenous leaders, musicians, artists, permaculturists, and visionaries who shaped her knowledge and skill set that she uses today.
In June 2017 Madeline decided to return to her roots of New York and now lives in Brooklyn.
She is currently enrolled in the masters program at Teachers College, Columbia University studying the bridge between spirituality and psychology, and continues to create art for the health of her own identity, love, and soul. She is currently designing workshops and classes that bridge art, science, and sacred teachings that she has learned from experience on her journey around the world.
Madeline is a co-founder of the Visionary Art Project, Seeds of the Anaconda that exhibits artwork of renowned academically acclaimed artists and local cultural artists in sacred and remote places of the world as ceremonial activation points for love, blessings, peace, and creativity. It is a project to connect hearts, share ideas and culture, and "celebrates diversity with out hindering unity, and unity without hindering diversity." Seeds of the Anaconda aims to show that even though we may come from very different places from around the world, we are woven together by Spirit & Earth, that is expressed in our art across time, space, and language.
