Closer to Illusion
Curated by Luana Hildebrandt
April 5 – May 11, 2024
Lyons’s painting practice is driven by an ongoing investigation into the cognitive and non-linguistic processes used in interpreting imagery. Primarily using paint as a medium, she recontextualizes appropriated imagery to provoke new meanings and visual interpretations. Directly utilizing content from art history she readdresses the issue of painting’s importance as part of the canon. Confronting the primary elements of paint, such as line and form, representation and abstraction, and color, Lyons addresses painting’s continued importance today.
Her work is influenced by her education and its subsequent opportunities. At UC Berkeley she studied with art historians T.J. Clark and Hal Foster. While at UCLA, working with artists Elizabeth Peyton and John Baldessari she cemented her works’ conceptual approach to figurative painting. In addition, Lyons absorbs a range of influences from Francisco Goya and Marlene Dumas to Romanesque and Surrealism.
Christiane Lyons received her Master of Fine Arts in Painting/Drawing in 2004 from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives and works in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
