NOVEMBER2000
MIAMI ARTIST CREDITS FSU PROFESSORS WITH HIS SUCCESS
Like many incoming freshmen, Robert Flynn wasn't sure what career he wanted. Now he knows. He is a painter and art professor living in South Beach Miami; his work has been shown around the world; and he gives credit to two "incredible" professors at FSU.
"When I went to Florida State, I initially wanted to go into architecture," said Flynn, 32. "And then I thought engineering. After that I wanted landscape architecture."
His wandering course track quickly found a groove after he registered for art classes.
"As soon as I took art history, that's what got me into it," Flynn remembers. "I just started taking lots of art classes, and that was it. I consider myself lucky because my two major professors at FSU were incredible.
"Mark Messersmith and Ray Burggraf were the best instructors I could have hoped for," Flynn remembers. "What's great is they each have different approaches to teaching, so if you take both of them you get the full deal. Mark is more hands-off. He wants you to push the stuff around and work with it. Ray is this theoretician, and he's going to show you and analyze these things and explain what makes a painting successful or not successful. They're the dynamic duo."
Burggraf has been teaching at FSU since 1970 and remembers Flynn fondly.
"Rob was always very energetic and involved with what
was going on," Burggraf said. "He did very well academically,
graduating cum laude."
After his visual arts bachelor's degree in '90, Flynn went to
graduate school at Rutgers in New Brunswick, N.J., where he received
an M.F.A. in painting in '92. Then he moved to New York City
and was an art handler and mover to support himself while he
painted.
"It wasn't going well," Flynn said. "I got a commercial driver's license and was driving a 33-foot truck around the city.
I hated it."
New York couldn't hold Flynn, and he was drawn back to Tallahassee to a teaching position in the FSU art department. "I taught two or three classes each term, and I really enjoyed it," he said. "I was teaching printmaking, painting, etching, lithography and some advanced classes."
After two years Flynn wanted a new scene.
"It was a nice feeling," Flynn said. "I was in
a position to move anywhere.
"I had some friends in South Beach, so that's where I ended up." Flynn has been working on his art ever since and is enjoying Miami.
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FLYNN
He has a studio in the Art Center South Florida, which is a large studio/gallery space open to the public. It's a not-for-profit organization, and the studios are subsidized for artists. Around 30 artists share the building on Lincoln Road in the heart of South Beach. Flynn has had attention for a series of paintings he did of cows.
The paintings are black and white on squares, so they work in rows.
"The cows are called 'variety,'" Flynn said. "They total 280 paintings. I painted the male and female from 140 different varieties of cattle. They were first shown at the FSU Fine Arts Museum at a faculty show. They have been shown here in South Beach, in London and Vietnam, in Ho Chi Minh City and Antwerp, Belgium. But they got the most attention, at least from young people, from MTV's The Real World when it was in South Beach. They were on the wall in the house and they were used often in promos for the show."
His latest series of paintings he said could be called "Peeps." They are of small birds such as chickadees, partially painted and partially pencil outlines with a uniform background.
Flynn describes his work as "one part realistic with one part abstraction.
"The new bird paintings appear to be abstract color field paintings from a distance, but upon closer inspection you notice the birds. You could say I'm a realist painter."
Flynn has won awards and grants, including one from Tigertail, an organization that gives grant money to emerging artists. In addition Flynn gets to create a piece of art to cover an 11 x 40-foot wall in the Miami Airport. Then the piece will travel to Brazil next year as part of the Florida-Brazil festival.
Being an artist can be a struggle in many ways. Taking criticism
is a large part of an artist's life, but Flynn seems philosophical
about it. "I've never had to worry about selling artwork
to pay bills," he said. "But it's risky. Every day
you get criticism, just from the look.
"I think you just have to stick to your ideas about what
you want to do and to show, produce and create." -