Finding Self

is an ongoing body of work exploring identity, visibility, and self-reclamation through painting, photography, and mixed media. Developed over several years, the series reflects a deeply personal journey from fragmentation toward wholeness, examining how memory, body image, inherited narratives, and lived experience shape our understanding of ourselves.

Working intuitively through layered abstraction, figuration, photography, and collage, each piece becomes part of a larger conversation about transformation. Rather than presenting identity as fixed, Finding Self embraces it as something continually constructed, questioned, concealed, and revealed.

Emerge from the Finding Self series by Bay Area artist Cathryn Lynea. Oil on recycled canvas with luminous, layered fields of color exploring identity, emergence, and self-reclamation.