Lynn A. Buettner
Fine Artist
"Life Force"
30 x 40" Oil on Canvas painted in 1982
Lynn A. Buettner
Life Force
"Life Force" tells the story of the condition of our world both today and also when it was painted by the the artist, Lynn Buettner, before she had any technical art college training. This was the painting to qualify her to get into the private and well revered Paier College of Art in Hamden, Connecticut in 1982 over thirty years ago.
Every aspect of this painting is symbolic and requires both imagination and a deep understanding of both nature-human and otherwise. Starting from the upper left: the natural forces with the volcano erupting leading to man-induced pollution ruining our water systems the same issues still command our attention today. Highly symbolic the butterfly oVERALL represents personal freedom of spirit. The butterfly has a fish tail showing that all things in nature are connected and nothing can happen to one thing without influencing another...The center or nucleus is the embryo symbolizing where all of our conscious thought begins.
Drawing from that inner energy all life and thought forms then develop. The painting shows the progression of man vs. nature as in the scene on the top left with the American Indian in a point of time conjunct with the paddle wheeler slipping away forever and mankind pushing us all past that time into the future. The garbage truck collects debris from our waste dumping it into our food chain, polluting the waters.
The rainbow on the left side is dark and muddy yet Mother Nature, with the nurturing effect of our hopeful young spirits, is seen in the scene with the baby bald eagle…rare but not yet extinct showing hope for our future.
There is a powerful orange question mark in the top right leading into the scene with the Saudi Arabian oil crisis. This is true even more so today with gas prices almost $5.00 a gallon…A possible solution comes forth with the solar energy panels seen with the oil fields in the background.
In the whale scene man is tampering with our delicate balance-harpooning and farming our most beautiful creature the whale.
A little girl figure symbolizing our own inner child and thought processes to figure things out is getting ready for that leap of faith into new ideas and realities always ready to forge forward for the betterment of mankind…hopeful in that mother nature will preside. As depicted with the clear rainbow new hope comes with the lady bug on the daisy doing what mother nature intended. And finally, the good outcome with a clear rainbow!