The first time I encountered David Lynch’s work was when I watched Twin Peaks. I was younger than the recommended age rating, and I found it deeply haunting yet mesmerising. The bizarre, cryptic visuals felt like a dream — nonsensical, yet they deeply resonated within me. I quickly became hooked, diving deeper into Lynch’s world through his films, art pieces and interviews. He never gave clear explanations as to what the meaning of his works were, but his art was never about providing definitive answers, but instead about provoking intuition and creativity, inviting a deeper, subconscious engagement with his creations. Lynch introduced a form of cinema that strayed from the norm, making film a unique experience, a sequence of images and sounds passing through time in a space and circumstance that could never be recreated, a collaborative art invoking a unique individual perspective from the viewer. A form of art that was by no means passive.
Through his work, I developed a capacity to imagine a world, existing beyond that which I live in, and became interested in Lynch’s personal influences, mainly his transcendental meditation. Lynch believed in the importance of the subconscious and understood it to be a source for imagination, happiness and inner peace. His passion for spirituality motivated him to found his own charity in 2005. He aimed to provide meditation as a form of treatment to vulnerable individuals suffering from PTSD and mental health struggles.
As a regular viewer of his weather reports and a devoted fan of his art, I see Lynch as a role model — someone who found humour and hope in everyday life, embracing positivity and love, above all. I will remember him for his incredible influence in the artistic world, but also for the loveable characters he created, his role as Deputy Gordon Cole in Twin Peaks, his appreciation for Coca Cola and cookies, his enduring friendship with Kyle MacLachlan, and his eccentric sayings. Lynch inspired me to explore the unknown and seek a deeper understanding of both the world and myself, but he also made me laugh and gave me a cinematic world that I will always return to.
“Within each of us is unbounded intelligence, creativity, bliss, happiness, love, and peace”- David Lynch.
Teodora Wollny
In the pilot of Twin Peaks, a small town discovers the dead body of 17-year-old Laura Palmer. The loss reverberates through the entire community. Her mother is distraught; her classmates and teachers cry; a policeman at the scene is overcome by tears. No-one’s emotions are spared, and the sense of sadness is unrelenting and overwhelming.
The collective grief that the townspeople face is immediately recalled by the death of David Lynch, Twin Peaks’ co-creator and one of our greatest visionaries. Lynch was a multi-disciplinary artist, but his work as a director remains his most celebrated. It is tempting to bemoan the films not made, the lessons not given, the answers forever undisclosed — but it’s needless. The answers are already out there.
From Eraserhead to Inland Empire, Lynch’s projects may be fêted for their surrealism, their dream logic, their enigmatic imagery. But as opaque as they are about some things, they are strikingly clear about others. They ought to be remembered, and likewise loved, for that of which they seem most certain: not only the real, graphic horror of the violence that our systems perpetuate, but also the importance of love, vision, earnestness, sincerity. And, of course, a good, hot cup of coffee.
Sam Stevens
Lynch experienced life like nobody else did. It was as if he lived in his own universe, and through his works, we were given the privilege of a mere glimpse into the inner workings of his fruitful subconscious mind. With Lynch’s works, there was simply no formula. No way could we possibly even fathom to recreate the inventions and innovations of a director who saw beyond the world, who lived in colour when many of us were shrouded in a dreary black and white. He understood the human condition deeply, and reformulated it to us as visuals worth stolen breaths, silence-shattering gasps, those that embrace lonely and desperate souls in dark liminal rooms. Haunting beauties you can’t tear yourself away from, mesmerising explorations of anything and everything — Lynch was a director you’d trust to take on any subject, with the knowledge that he’d transform that very subject into an alluring and irresistible spectacle.
With a filmography boasting Mulholland Drive, Eraserhead, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Lynch’s creativity was bursting at the seams and overflowing out of screens (excuse the rhyme). It remains clear that Lynch was able to find beauty in our fears like no other. He took mundanity, manipulated it into a form that was entrancing and thrilling, luring in audiences worldwide. He was a film-maker, musician, visionary, but above all, he was an artist. He took the unknown and reclaimed it as his own. He showed us that we should welcome fear, not overcome it, and instead, use it to fuel our greatest creations.
Lynch had us in the palm of his hands; hearing Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Velvet”, names “Betty” and “Laura”, donuts, “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star, even weather reports, will never be the same. We were lucky to experience and enjoy the world with him in it, even if it was for too short a time. Certainly, he’ll continue to haunt us (forever, I hope) and satisfy our intrinsic mental and emotional desires.
Was it all a dream?
We hope you’re enjoying two cookies and a coke in heaven, David. Rest in peace.
Audrey Yeung
Illustration by Lydia Kempton, @lydiak_arts