Rah Flynn, an X-Ray, Surgical, and Installation Artist, reveals the beauty within through her work and opens her Kettering home to visitors for Northants & Rutland Open Studios.
At a recent exhibition at Lamport Hall, artist Rah Flynn unveiled Legacy — a hauntingly beautiful work created from the spinal implant of a young man who had died from Duchenne muscular dystrophy aged just 27.
James’s brother Jordan had loaned Rah the spinal implant, asking her if she could use it to create something beautiful.
Retrieved from James’ cremation ashes, the implant became the foundation of a piece of art that intertwines science, art and legacy.
“With Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the body folds in on itself and rods are inserted into the spine to protect the internal organs from being crushed. This implant actually enabled James to have another 7 years of life.”
Rah started the process of transforming the implant into a sensitive piece of art layered with meaning.
Using hundreds of X-rays, which she amalgamated in photoshop, Rah combined them with a selection of botanical motifs, to create an artwork she entitled Legacy.
The finished piece was shown as part of a recent event curated by Rah at Lamport Hall. Viewers were moved, sometimes overwhelmed by the juxtaposition of grief, beauty, and memory.
Legacy
Northants Open Studios
Rah is one of 325 artists taking part in this September’s Northants Open Studios, with exhibitions spread across more than 130 venues. On 17th and 20th September, she will be opening the doors of her Victorian home in Kettering, inviting visitors into both her living and working space for a rare chance to see her creative process in action.
Combining art and science is Rah’s unusual signature style.
By profession, she is a Diagnostic Radiographer.
She is also a X-Ray, Surgical and Installation Artist.
“My art really is a kind of hybrid between art and science in its purest sense,” she says.
Her artistic technique is meticulous. In radiology, a dye is sometimes injected into blood vessels to highlight the body’s vascular systems.
In her ‘Beauty Within Series’, Rah applies the same approach to flowers, injecting them so that their inner workings glow under X-ray. She then spends weeks refining the images, layering and painting them pixel by pixel until they take on the same depth and richness as an oil painting.
Each piece is infused with symbolism. “I’m fascinated by how people are perceived and how they present themselves to others,” Rah explained. “X-ray imagery naturally looks beneath the surface, so for me it’s an analogy for looking within — inviting people to explore hidden parts of themselves, and to approach every part of the self with kindness, and to reflect on how their words and actions impact others.”
Each flowerhead represents a different self — the many versions of who we are in different contexts: as friends, children, parents, or partners.
An artwork entitled, Fly Away, depicts a sunflower with its petals drifting off. “It’s about the phases in life when we’ve had to leave people, places, or situations — sometimes by choice, sometimes not. All of those moments culminate in the person we become.”
Fly Away
This September, Rah will once again be exhibiting as part of Northants Open Studios — this time opening up her own Kettering Victorian home, and inviting people to step inside her home to see her at work, which aims to ask audiences not just to look, but to look deep within.
On being asked what advice she would give someone wishing to combine work with creative passion, she said:
“The advice I’d always give would be to follow your curiosity. That’s the absolute, that’s the absolute driver of everything I do really. And, that will lead you to various places and always where your heart lies and that matters.”
Rah Flynn will be opening her home in Kettering on the 17th and 20th September. For full details visit the brochure link: https://online.fliphtml5.com/rlpov/azjn/#p=52
Many other artists will also be opening up their homes and venues opening their doors to the public free of charge: For the full schedule of events visit the brochure link: https://online.fliphtml5.com/rlpov/azjn/#p=52