David Lynch: The Unified Field

Acclaimed director David Lynch began his artistic career not in film or television but as a student of painting and drawing at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. This lavish volume collects the brilliant, and in many cases bizarre, paintings and drawings that Lynch has created over the past 45 years. Featuring 116 plates and an extensive contextualizing essay by Cozzolino, the curator of modern art at PAFA, this handsome book brings Lynch’s fine art work into new focus. Many of the paintings offer visual clues to Lynch’s film projects and others represent dark corners of Lynch’s brain. Cozzolino draws many of the connections between Lynch’s work and life, including the impact of Lynch’s longstanding practice of meditation and the influence of Philadelphia on Lynch’s work. What’s most provocative about Lynch, in both his films and his paintings, is his ability to hint at reality’s underlying contradictions and complexity. He works primarily in black, or black-on-black, and often seems more attuned to body parts than people. Many of Lynch’s paintings can initially be viscerally disturbing or confusing, but with Lynch, there is always the promise of a deeper meaning beyond the surface. This impeccable collection of art confirms Lynch’s position as a gifted polymath—and one of the country’s most important artists working today. (Dec.)