Happy Birthday Lorraine!
We warmly congratulate our alumna Lorraine Fink on her 100 Birthday. Lorraine continues to paint, draw, and sculpt with her signature vibrant creativity and the Art Department is marking the occasion with an exhibition of her recent work. The exhibition entitled Won! Oh! Oh! is on view in the Barry Arts Building Rotunda from August 15 till September 30, 2024, opening hours 9am-8pm M-F and 1pm-5pm Sat-Sun, on Monarch Way between 46th and 47th streets. It is free and open to the public.
The reception takes place on September 12, 2024, Thursday, 6pm-8pm in the Barry Rotunda. All are invited: come and meet Lorraine and share in her joyful energy.
Lorraine is a distinguished Virginian artist. Her work was honored by the Chrysler Museum, Virginia Museum, Virginia Watercolor Society, Hermitage Museum, Smithsonian Institution, College of William and Mary, and the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. She has enjoyed critical acclaim locally and nationally in juried exhibitions and over 50 solo shows. Fink and her art were featured nationally on PBS television through WHRO’s show “Curate.”
In 2005 she and her husband established the Lorraine and Dr. H. William Fink Art Scholarship Fund at ODU In Honor of Ken Daley in printmaking and photography, supporting a student with this generous endowment.
Lorraine’s life’s journey into art has been not unlike that of many of our students in the Art Department. When her four sons were in high school and her daughter in grammar school, some friends invited her to join them to audit an art class at ODU. She went, having no idea this would be her first step into 15 years of studying at ODU and a lifetime as an artist. Continuing to take classes, she switched from audit to credit and studied painting with Charles Sibley, printmaking with Ken Daley, and sculpture with Rick Nickel. At age 53, she earned her BFA, and five years later, her MFA. Afterwards, she taught at ODU as well as the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Chrysler Museum, Peninsula Fine Arts Center, and privately.
She creates images that explore figurative and abstract representations of indigenous and exotic peoples, animals, and birds. Her works draw inspiration from her studies and her worldwide travels with her late husband, pediatrician Dr. H. William Fink. Her depictions of migraines were the sole image on the cover of the peer-reviewed journal Pain as part of illustrations for that issue’s featured article from Harvard Medical School and others were used in at least one other scientific publication. They continue to be published and used internationally by neurologists and headache specialists to help patients describe their pain and thus help the doctors diagnose and treat their migraines. People can’t believe she doesn’t have migraines (thankfully). She’s just a really good listener. While she was studying Jungian philosophy at ODU, her Professor, Dr. Marian Pauson, chose Fink’s “Seven Days of Creation” series of paintings to illustrate Pauson’s book Jung the Philosopher.
Lorraine is a prolific artist, continuously exploring new subjects and new media. Come and see her work, come to the reception!
