About Cory Lyons
I have always reached out in different directions in my work, but central to this is the human figure, and more often than not the female figure.
The woman’s body’s major role in mainstream male-dominated work is a minefield to negotiate, dealing as it must in such sensitive areas as the active male gaze and the passive female model. As a female artist working in the genre I am playing with aspects of myself, of colour, of texture, of scale, rather than working from the observation of a model. There is no model involved in these works of the imagination.
In the paintings in which a woman is on her own, or in relation to another figure, my focus is entirely on the presence of the living body. In the installation work I am concerned with the absence of the body or trace left by that body.
Thus there is a pull towards life or death in these different kinds of work; it is the paintings which are an expression of the strength and force and sensuality of the living moment.
I have always drawn and as a child worked with my father illustrating books on medieval history. While still at school I went to life drawing classes at the Ruskin School of Art. I studied illustration at St. Martin’s and discovered it wasn’t the direction I wanted to pursue.
Our two children were born in London and while they were little we had an exchange year in Southern California, where I started to work in a larger, freer style, joining in life classes at Mesa College, San Diego.
We made the formative move to Devon in 1971. I was working in a semi-abstract, expressionistic style on large hardboards and showing in Tiverton and teaching at East Devon College.
From 1982 I began to exhibit regularly with the sculptor Witold Kawalec at Dewsmoor Art, Crediton and also to work in a studio there. We shared exhibitions in London and elsewhere. In 1988 my husband and I moved to Winchester and finding myself without a studio, and wanting to get back into an art school environment I went to Winchester School of Art and completed a degree in Visual Arts. I worked with video, installation and found objects on subjects connected with the body and the passing of time.
Now we are back in Devon and I am painting again and exploring movement, texture and colour in a way which is new for me. But my subject matter is what it has always been, drawing freely on my experience of the figure and the landscapes and seascapes which surround me.
