Artist Bio

  • What he does:

    Lochlin Caffey is an artist, architect and engineer. He lives in Nashville.

  • Where he has worked:

    Nashville. Atlanta. Denver. Tokyo. Munich.

  • Where he has lived:

    New York. France. Germany. New England. The American South.

  • Where he has studied:

    University of Tennessee School of Architecture, B.Arch.

    Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, M.Eng.

  • What you should know:

    He speaks fluent German.

    He feels uncomfortable describing himself in the third person.

  • What he works with:

    Steel. Ink. Wood. Paint. Caffeine.

Lochlin Caffey is a prolific American artist. In his career he has produced literally thousands of works including drawings, sculptures, paintings, photographs and digital pieces. The scale of his work runs from the very small to large-scale public pieces. He lives in Nashville.

Artist Statement

No one can claim to hold one system of understanding applicable in every condition of existence. Mathematics does not predict the desires of the human heart. Physics controls the ball but not the game. Religion describes the birth of light but not its velocity. Biology explains the wheat but not the bread.

Mankind develops divergent frameworks to explain the manifold conditions of physical existence and human experience. Hence we have philosophy, science, ethics, mathematics, law, history, politics, commerce and industry. Art arises in the interstices and conflicts between systems. It is an intuitive yet ineffable process born of the search for comprehension.

Much of my work is based in explorations of pure form and pattern. Basic units develop into universal, extensible systems of repetition. Multiple systems interact, fold and collide to become interwoven and conflated. This collision and synthesis reflect a universe which is only partly comprehensible, and even then only in multiple overlapping, conflicting and concurrent perceptions.

The impulse to work with form and structure led me first into architecture and later into graphical art and sculpture. My media are steel, paint, ink, and paper.