1 of 3
Lynn Goldsmith
2 of 3
Lynn Goldsmith
3 of 3
Lynn Goldsmith
Artist or not, questions of identity and the distinction between reality and illusion have fascinated humankind throughout history. Though these thought-provoking concepts are far from new, renowned artist Lynn Goldsmith explores them in an entirely new way. Through her limited-edition book of self-portraits, The Looking Glass, Goldsmith assumes an array of guises by injecting herself into settings that originated as store windows in New York City, and transforms them into visionary windows exploring the relationship between what we see and what we imagine. And beginning June 24, photos from The Looking Glass will be displayed at The Parthenon in an extraordinary exhibition.
As a self-taught artist and entrepreneur, Goldsmith’s artistry has never been defined by one genre. In addition to her work as a photographer Goldsmith’s distinguished career has spanned television directing, music, painting, and much more. Her fearlessness and limitless passion for creative growth have guided her through many art forms, but her love of photography has always been a constant.
Though she is particularly known for her portraits of rock icons, Goldsmith is no stranger to the art of self-portraits. But unlike traditional self-portraits, The Looking Glass showcases Goldsmith in a variety of settings that blur the lines between reality and illusion. Using her face as a stage, she enters the bodies of mannequins from NYC storefront windows and transforms herself into characters that share in the narrative with them. Inspiration for this concept struck as Goldsmith was riding a wooden escalator in the Macy’s near her NYC home; a ritual she adopted to ground herself in moments of self-reflection.
“Riding the escalator in Macy’s, I started thinking about the power of window dressing—how we imagine ourselves in them, and the mannequins who occupy the windows, how they have changed over time,” Goldsmith recalls. “I started by photographing the store windows. I knew that doing all of this digitally meant that I could take things out of the picture easily, photograph other objects, and add them to the story. Because when someone looks at a window dressing and then they go in and buy that piece of clothing, I often wonder, ‘What do they actually see when they look in the window?’”
She also saw the series as an opportunity to explore what photographer Ansel Adams once told her—nothing really exists until there’s a print.
“Prior to the digital era, a photograph basically was a depiction of a moment in time, and that really got shapeshifted with these other opportunities of what one could create inside the computer with photographic images. I can do that in my painting, I can do that in my drawing, but to make something look like it could have actually existed was part of the challenge for me; and it led me to more investigation into what influences me, what influences other people. It’s a journey of self-investigation,” says Goldsmith.
And the first time she saw Nashville’s very own Parthenon, she knew it was the right location to display her photos that blur the lines between reality and illusion.
“As soon as I came to Nashville and saw it, I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s the perfect place,’” she says. “It just really seemed to have the energy in the building itself of addressing this thing that we have called a belief system.”
Not only will photographs from The Looking Glass be on display at the Parthenon exhibition, but guests can also purchase the accompanying limited-edition book of the prints. Goldsmith is elated to share her work through this display and hopes to inspire others along the way.
“Each image is very much a journey for me, and I hope that the viewer would not only be entertained by it and simply just like what it looks like, but that they might be inspired to know that they have the opportunity to change their own visual self and to test out how the world responds to them.”
(Centennial Park, 2500 West End Ave.; lynngoldsmith.com)