About Lynne Looney
Artist • Muralist • Designer • Instructor
From Texas to a Life in Art
Born in Rosebud, Texas, in 1953, Lynne Looney has spent a lifetime finding new ways to turn imagination into something visible.
Her creative career began in publishing, illustration, and commercial design, laying the foundation for work that would eventually span theatrical design, signage, billboards, decorative art, murals, specialty finishes, event design, and fine art.
Art, Education, & the Texas Years
During the 1980s, travelers along Interstate 35 between Waco and Austin may have seen Lynne’s Texas wildflower billboards—large-scale works that combined her background in commercial design with her love of flowers, color, and expressive imagery.
Her artistic development continued in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico, where she studied painting at the Instituto Allende and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1980.
Atlanta & Large-Scale Commissioned Work
In 1988, Lynne moved to Atlanta, where her career expanded into the Southeast’s event-design industry. She helped create large-scale decorative environments and custom artistic installations, drawing on her experience in illustration, design, painting, and theatrical work.
By the early 1990s, she was creating murals, specialty finishes, decorative paintings, and commissioned artwork for residential, commercial, and institutional clients throughout Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, and beyond.
Her work during this period ranged from murals and hand-painted furnishings to floor cloths, painted silk, custom wall treatments, and monumental paintings—often developed specifically for a client, designer, or architectural space. An archival brochure from this period even describes a 12 × 20-foot oil-on-canvas painting created for the 1995 Southeastern Flower Show.
Archival promotional artwork from Lynne Looney’s Atlanta commissioned-art career.
Murals & Decorative Art
Lynne’s commissioned work expanded well beyond traditional paintings. She created murals and decorative environments tailored to the people and places they were designed for, often drawing inspiration from clients’ photographs, travels, architecture, local history, and personal interests.
Her work included panoramic murals, decorative wall painting, hand-painted furniture, floor cloths, painted silk, custom wall treatments, and other one-of-a-kind pieces. Rather than relying on standard decorative techniques, Lynne approached these projects as a fine artist—combining traditional imagery with contemporary design and adapting each work to its individual setting.
“Blithe Spirit” — French-inspired master bathroom mural for the Dowden residence, painted by Lynne Looney and Chris Hawkins.
Art for a Wider Audience
Lynne’s work eventually reached an even broader audience through Sugar Hill, a mail-order home décor catalog for which she created hundreds of hand-painted, one-of-a-kind decorative pieces.
Working across a wide range of subjects, materials, and styles, she produced original artwork that was shipped to homes and collectors across the country and beyond. The volume and variety of this work reflected something that has remained constant throughout her career: a willingness to experiment, adapt, and keep creating.
Selections from archival Sugar Hill catalogs featuring original hand-painted work by Lynne Looney.
Murals & Decorative Art
Over the course of her career, Lynne has created artwork and commissioned projects for businesses, institutions, designers, performing arts organizations, and private clients throughout the Southeast and beyond.
AFLAC
The Atlanta Ballet
Callaway Gardens
Coca-Cola
Georgia Power
McLane Company
Springer Opera House
WCTE-TV
Crossville Model Railroad Club
Iris Johansen
An Artist Always Evolving
Throughout her career, Lynne has resisted being defined by a single medium or style. Her work has moved between commercial design, large-scale commissions, murals, decorative art, teaching, and deeply personal paintings—each chapter building on the skills and curiosity of the one before it.
Color, texture, layering, movement, and experimentation remain central to her work. Whether creating on a wall, canvas, piece of furniture, or an unexpected surface, Lynne continues to approach art with the same instinct that has shaped her career: to explore, adapt, and make something uniquely her own.
Lynne Looney Studios Today
Lynne Looney Studios brings together the many chapters of Lynne’s creative life—paintings, murals, commissioned projects, decorative work, photographs, stories, and the artistic process behind them.
Today, the studio continues that story through original artwork, prints, creative instruction, and a growing archive documenting decades of artistic work.
More than a portfolio, Lynne Looney Studios is an evolving record of a life spent creating.
Lynne working on one of her large abstract paintings in her studio with a curious young companion watching nearby.