About the works on the website -
'The sole true something - This! In Limbo Den' Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Limbo (1817)
I like to explore the way meaningful connections are created between disparate experiences and between works of art, and I use this to make one coherent work from a range individual moments. The notion of portraiture is key to my work, as is the idea that a subject can be developed and understood through a series of different moments, motifs or images.
I present on the website a series called Ghosts. With the Ghosts series I hope to explore the joyful and the terrifying. I am interested here in transparent faces, reflecting coleridge's description of Ghosts in 'Limbo' 'his eyeless face all eye; - as twere an organ full of silent sight, his whole face seemth to rejoice in light! Lip touching lip, all moveless, bust and limb, he seems to gaze at that which seems too gaze on him'.
I am interested in Proust's idea that 'thanks to art, instead of seeing a single world, our own, we see it multiply until we have before us as many worlds as there are original artists'. My paintings are a book inverse of Proust's idea his book is a painting.
I am interested in interweaving some ideas around creation and collecting art historical narratives. In each painting, the masks aim to reference a variety of different art historical languages. Through the inclusion of references to renaissance painting, figures and primitive cave painting. I represent also a abstract character. My use of masks in limbo comments on 'the projection' involved in this process.
The series 'Palimpsests of Light' series started in 2010 presents a subjective narrative; between disparate experiences and between works of art. The series presents a part erasing, rewriting, and repainting of different styles in art history. Please see text on the embodiment of space, time and light for more information link here.
In some of the paintings, these references are presented on separate masks, each mask in the series representing a different art historical style in subjective connection to the presented characters and images from the past and present. TThis series is a development of the Ghost series, and History book series. More information coming shortly.
The Embodiment of Space and light - Written 30th of december, Updated 1 December 2011 more information coming shortly.
In the light paintings, and 'With turner van gogh and oxford in mind' starting in 2009, and in all of my work I connect light to different histories and times. This started in 1996 with Forgotten ruins.
Artists as varied as JMW Turner, Howard Hodgkin, John Martin, Van Gogh, Francis Bacon, Lucas Cranach, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Regina Jose Galindo, as well as Milton's 'Paradise Lost', Marcel Prousts' 'In search of lost time' and the 'Portrait of an Artist as a young man' by James Joyce are important for me. Elizabeth Price, Mark Lecky, John Baldessari, Cindy Sherman, Steve Claydon, Grimm Fairytales, Chapman Brothers, and Tracey Emin also important for me with their different explorations of narrative through form and the analysis of this within the work itself. I am interested in creating beautiful new forms, new images and work that is complex, evocative and accessible.
I aim to portray an understanding of the contemporary human condition. I see art as an adventure to make ideas and insights accessible sometimes as questions, sometimes to encourage more. I would like to help explore the observation, investigation and sharing of subjects that might be of interest.
For further information about any works or images - please contact info@josephinelyons.net
Biography -
Josephine Lyons (born in London, 1983) studied at Goldsmiths (2002-06). She has exhibited in group exhibitions in London and Oxford, including ‘Opera and art’ at Covet Garden Film Studios (2007). Her first solo exhibition, ‘Unexpected Signs and Location of Other Realms’, was held in the old Woolworth’s building in Crouch End, London, in June 2009. Her second solo exhibition of over 50 works, ‘I'm in Love with the World’, was held in Oxford in 2010. Josephine Lyons lives and works in London. In 2011, Josephine last solo exhibition was 'Ghosts' at the Menier Gallery in London Bridge. Upcoming show planned for 2011, 'Palimpsests', more information coming shortly.