Evidence of Lynch’s blossoming taste for contemporary art permeates his home. Mike, a mixed-media work by artist Zac Freeman, hangs directly across from his front door, greeting entering visitors. From a distance, it seems like an intricate and realistic oil portrait. Up close, it reveals bottle caps, Legos, and bits of broken toys.

Lynch relates, “Mike fascinates me. That piece is transcendent. How do you take junk and turn it into something that absolutely grabs you? That’s where the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. That’s the magic of art.”

For Lynch, the mystery of an artist’s intention is part of the joy of experiencing a work. Speaking of Pear with a Pair by Ray Hare, he says, “This is a painting that looks perfect. Everything about it is perfect, and yet the artist took bruised pears and painted them exactly as they are. They are not beautiful, and yet the painting is almost aesthetically perfect.” Describing Ambition by Adam Normandin, Lynch ponders, “There is a guy in a workshop pulling a rope with all his might, but there is a huge part of the story that we don’t know. What is he trying to pull? It captures a vignette, a human struggle. How do you capture a concept without a narrative? This is beautifully rendered art, and I loved it for that, but you start pulling back the layers . . . ” This vision of art rhymes with Lynch’s take on human nature. “We are multilayered individuals,” he says.

“Most of our lives are built around practical things, but I can’t imagine what my life would be without art. It gives me pleasure, gives me joy, gives me an escape. It’s not confined to a mechanical, dry, objective world. Those things don’t give you that additional layer—that indefinable ingredient that art does. In that regard, art is like food for the soul.”

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