In 2023, artist Lyn Hiner moved into her new larger studio and gallery space, a big milestone for her business Lyn Hiner Studios, as the venue allowed her to share her work and creative process with her many clients. Lyn is a Southern California native who creates automotive artwork using palette knives as her tools of choice to express her love of the automobile through an emotive lens.
Lyn has been a professional artist since 2015, when in her early forties she suffered terrible burns from a freak incident after she accidently picked up a piece of phosphorous from a beach. Following her long recovery Lyn felt herself called back to art after not painting for decades.
Despite a love of cars that developed as a child and working as the trade show manager of Performance Racing Industry for a decade, the convergence of Lyn’s two passions in life was serendipitous. Lyn grew up around cars, as her dad loved amateur racing and rebuilding Porsches. Some of her earliest memories are the smell of that Porsche, her little butt sliding around the passenger seat as her dad went around corners and her dad placing her hand on the gear shifter so she could feel when to change the gears. Lyn describes herself as a self-confessed Porsche geek and says she can name a Porsche based on its exhaust sound; she also drives a 2002 996 Porsche as her daily.
It was not until a collector of one of Lyn’s first series of artworks called “Petals,” who knew she was a car girl, asked if she would be open to creating a Porsche piece for his office. Lyn said, ‘sure’, as long as he didn’t grumble about how it looked in her abstracted, textured approach. He agreed; thus Stefan (and the “Petrol” series) was created. Lyn always chooses a female name for the cars she paints and the unspoken name for this series of paintings is called ‘The Other Woman’. Because this is how men often treat their cars: caring for them like they’re the new girlfriend. Pampering them, giving them the best spot in the garage, making sure they get the best money can buy, etc.
Lyn’s second painting in the “Petrol” series was of a Shelby Cobra she called Sherry and next was her dad’s orange Porsche 911, she called Greta. One of my personal favourite paintings by Lyn is a black Ferrari 458 Spider. It was a commissioned piece for a private collector and the title was “CSTUDNT” because that’s on his license plate. It was a nod to a fellow Ferrari owner/friend and a running dialogue between them and Lyn thought it was a super fun title because we all seem to push our kids to be A+ students!
“To come back to the auto-sphere weaving together my love of painting and beautiful cars…what a gift to not only do this but have the audience that seems to enjoy it! Not everyone gets my particular style/voice, but those who do are so supportive! How blessed am I?” contemplated Lyn.
With palette knives and heavy body paint, Lyn creates her paintings with multiple layers that are built up to create a 3D effect. Lyn sometimes incorporates gold and silver leaf for an even greater effect and the result is art that people can’t help but to want to touch, which can be a problem for public exhibitions of her works. It can take a minimum of 6-10 hours for Lyn to paint a piece and up to 20-30 hours for major works.
A painting by Lyn is her interpretation of a car through her lens and she wants to evoke an emotional response through her work. Lyn’s style allows for things that are imperfect, like the dripping of paint, and this is one of her hallmarks. As such people have an emotional response to her artwork, it’s not just about the car, but the memories that the car creates for people, and that is important to her. Lyn is not just trying to paint your car, but wants to elicit an emotional reaction with her art. Lyn often reflects on a quote from Matisse, “To copy the objects in a still-life is nothing, one must render the emotion they awaken.”
For Lyn painting automobiles is similar to her love affair she has with painting flowers: because they are so beautiful and so unique. Although Lyn has an affinity for Porsche’s there are simply too many beautiful cars, she finds exquisite to say they’re the only one. Among the most beautiful cars of all time according to Lyn is her absolute favourite, the 356 Porsche Speedster, along with the Porsche 550 Spyder, the 275 and 330 Ferraris, and the iconic Jaguar E-TYPE. Lyn prefers to paint cars from the sixties cars as she finds them beautiful with their rounded lines. In Lyn’s opinion modern car designers have lost touch with the beauty of cars.
“I can’t help but want to share the beauty, the memory, the love I have/see in these creations. For those that love cars, there is always a story. Always! Sometimes I have captured that feeling for them in a piece I created as part of my annual collection, sometimes a client wants me to use my voice (my style) to capture a memory they have. How cool is that?!? I have the privilege of being a part of someone’s journey/history/experience! And in this realm, it happens to be about the automobile!” Lyn revealed to Driven Women Magazine.
When Lyn started the “Petrol” series, she thought she would exclusively paint the “face” of the car, mimicking the sentiment that the eyes are the window to the soul type vibe. Lyn did that twice before she did the rear, then the rear quarter panel with the wheel, and on it went from there. If the piece is part of her personal collection for the year, Lyn typically gravitates towards focusing on a tighter detail that has captured her attention: part of a steering wheel of a 356, the gate of a Ferrari, the wheel and brake caliper of a super car, etc. The designers of these automobiles spent time crafting these beautiful details and Lyn can’t help but find them fascinating.
“It’s an all-in experience. It’s not only physical, but emotional. It’s cerebral and intuitive. I feel confident and unsure…but mostly I feel extravagant joy 97% of the time! The other 3% is pure terror…the kind you have on a roller coaster ride. I believe in the journey I’m on has been given to me, so I don’t want to squander a moment of it, but I also have no idea where it is leading. I don’t necessarily fear the unknown, but it is uncomfortable, so I step in, eyes open, arms wide sometimes screaming ‘You’ve got this!’…but silently praying ‘God, please catch me if I fall!’” This is how Lyn describes the feeling when she paints.
Lyn has been blessed with quite a few career highlights, but from the Automotive side of her career being invited to exhibit at the SEMA Show’s ArtWalk back in 2017 was the first highlight as it was the event that really launched her Petrol (or automobile) series. Showing at the Amelia and Pebble Beach Concours’ continues to top her list also.
In 2019, Lyn was one of five artists included in a contingent of 250 US automotive celebrities, builders and manufacturers invited to participate in the inaugural Riyadh Season Festival in Saudi Arabia. Lyn was the only woman artist and one of only a handful of women who went on this journey.
Being asked to create a series of works for the “Rare Air” exhibition (Rare Air-Cooled Porsches) at the Saratoga Automobile Museum in 2021 was Lyn’s first museum show. This year, Lyn is officially going global with the launch of Lyn Hiner Studios Japan. Lyn will be travelling to Tokyo for her second Japanese exhibition at Automobile Council 2024.
“It still makes me giddy to see some of my work in the Petersen Automotive Museum. Hoping to one day have a full-scale exhibit of my artwork there. Otherwise, is it cheeky to say that now that I have my own gallery/studio, it’s [her favourite place to be displayed at] here? I don’t take it for granted that I have this space, but to set it up the way I envisioned it…crazy cool for me,” shared Lyn.
In addition to these event/ career milestones, there’s all of her amazing clients and collectors, many of whom have become dear friends that Lyn has met along the way. Then there are the folks who simply resonate with her work, and cheer her on, which is incredibly important to Lyn when most of what she does in the creative space is deeply personal. For the last five years Lyn has been able to work in this all-in, very intense lifestyle with her husband, who manages the business side of Lyn Hiner Studios, which is a huge gift for her as his strengths pair beautifully with hers.
“It’s not only a privilege but incredibly important to me to come alongside other artists. Maybe because I was older when I came back to the professional art world, and already had life and business experience, but some of what I found while researching how to step back in was challenging. Other artist can sometimes fear giving away all their “secrets!”
There was only one artist at the very beginning of this journey who spent his valuable time with me. I offered to pay him for his time, but he refused. I had a page of questions I had written out, and he spent hours with me honestly answering every single one. I decided that was the model I wanted to follow and have since adopted an open-door policy for artists who are starting out or wanting to level up. I don’t know everything…heck, what I know only scratches the surface! But I offer my encouragement and knowledge as best I can,” said Lyn.
Working in two industries that are considered male-dominated (auto racing and art) didn’t personally affect Lyn’s perception or approach to operating within them. Lyn watched her mom build her own business with her husband while she was growing up, and her dad instilled in her the belief she could do anything she set her mind to.
“Those are powerful motivators at the beginning of your life. Throughout my early career days, and even in the midpoint of my life, I considered myself fairly autonomous, scrapping my way through learning the ropes of a new career,” articulated Lyn.
Throughout Covid though, there was an online community called ‘Women Shifting Gears’ that Lyn was connected to. They had a monthly zoom meeting and Lyn felt it was amazing as there were heads of industry, icons of racing, powerhouses in all aspects of the auto industry, as well as drivers and journalists, etc all supporting each other and discussing their personal journeys and experiences, triumphs and challenges
“This was truly one of the most powerful reminders of what people are capable of especially when encouraged and supported. I have become friends with many of these women, people I already admired from afar, are now people I can reach out to ask advice/opinions of,” said Lyn.
We all need more of that in our lives according to Lyn, even though it feels like we are “back to normal” after the pandemic, Lyn believes one of the ways we as a society have somewhat fallen apart in the wake of that time, is in supporting each other. For Lyn, we are better together, especially as we lift each other up and she hopes to be this kind of person, just as she was the recipient of such incredible support.
“If life has taught me anything, I believe it’s that it’s most beautiful when lived together. I often wonder if that’s what is reflected in the art I create and perhaps it’s what evokes response in the people who appreciate the work,” concluded Lyn.
To view more of Lyn Hiner’s work or to commission her to create an original artwork of your own vehicle, visit her website lynhiner.com. You can also follow Lyn Hiner on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Photographs by Lyn Hiner.