Artist on the Rise: Camryn Van Lingen

When it comes to Augustana senior Camryn Van Lingen’s work, she’s not afraid of an up-close-and-personal glance from a viewer. In fact, that intensive focus on detail is exactly what she hopes to achieve whenever she lifts a brush or pencil.

Camryn Van Lingen

“When I see a photorealistic piece, there’s this quality of ‘holy cow — I could stare at this for hours,’” she said. “You want to be able to step close to it and see brushstrokes or pencil lines. The quality that you can create something that looks so three-dimensional and real on a flat surface is super fun to see. To see it come to life. That’s what it is for me.”

The student artist and soon-to-be educator has built this appreciation for the details over the years, first as the daughter of an art teacher and now as a student-teacher about to lead a classroom of her own.

“I was exposed to art from a very young age,” said Van Lingen, a double major in art and education at Augustana University. “My mom was always dabbling with it trying to get me interested. But it wasn’t until my senior year of high school when I really found my own art inspiration. I had a studio, independent art study course, and I really started to get to do my own type of art. That was where I found my love for it. And then I realized I really liked working with people. So I decided I wanted to become an art teacher and kind of follow in my mom’s footsteps.”

Since joining the art program at college, Van Lingen has evolved her approach to her work greatly, finding unique ways to create custom reference photos through digital design. It’s been a world-opening inspiration for her drawing and painting practices.

“One of the things I ran into a lot was growing confidence in myself as an artist and in my style,” she said. “I feel like I had to explain and grow confidence in myself to be able to stand up for what I really enjoyed. Now, as a senior, I’ve really realized it doesn’t matter what other people say about it — I enjoy it, and I’ve grown in it.

“I’ve also honed in on my process. Because I use such a realistic style, I work very closely with reference photos. I used to use only one photo and just leave it at that, and now I actually use a combination of a bunch of photos, Photoshop my own compositions and create a really interesting reference to work from. It’s seemed to really work for me.”

This recently culminated in what Van Lingen cites as one of her most rewarding pieces to date, where she was able to connect the dots between her photorealistic style and something more surreal in nature.

“We had to make the canvas. I bought the wood and stretched the canvas myself,” she said. “It’s about as tall as me — I’m five-foot-nothing — so this thing was cumbersome. I did a gigantic oil painting based off of a graphic design I’d made in a previous class. It was one thing to have made it on a computer — but I wanted to try it in a fine-art medium.

“Because it was so big, it was quite the challenge, but I’m so proud of the final result. It captures my style, but also this surrealistic vibe — this combination between my realism and something more imaginative. It was cool to prove to myself that I could do something more imaginative while still maintaining my style.”

As she approaches the end of her schooling and the beginning of her time as a teacher, the soon-to-be graduate is excited to share her fascination with creating with another generation of students — something for which she can, in part, thank her mother.

“We have a lot of similar teaching philosophies — she’s pretty extroverted, so I think I got that from her,” Van Lingen said. “We like working with people, inspire others and show the world that anybody can be creative. It just takes patience, practice and guidance.

“It’s about accepting and learning from your mistakes. As artists, we’re so afraid to make a mistake and do something that we’ll absolutely hate by the end. Those mistakes are opportunities to learn — and sometimes those happy accidents can turn into a really interesting piece. Mistakes are a vital part of the learning process.”