At 91, John Lyons' career is getting a major boost with a touring exhibition of his paintings. His work draws on the vibrant folklore of Trinidad and Tobago, exploring themes of identity, survival, and the human condition.
For decades, the Trinidadian artist has used the folkloric imagery of his homeland to examine notions of identity. As a new exhibition of his work opens, the 91-year-old says he is too busy moving forward to look back
The artist’s major touring survey, Carnivalesque, conjures these figures in paintings using lush brushwork in heated colours, directing their disruptive energy into unsettling scenes that can be ecstatic or brooding, threatening or jubilant. Beginning with work from 1964, when Lyons graduated from south London’s Goldsmiths’ College, it chronicles six decades of his development as a painter and award-winning poet.
It wasn’t until the 1980s that he first began using his heritage directly in his work, while a new British Black arts movement saw marginalised younger artists begin to work and exhibit collaboratively. “I did feel ethnically connected to the young Black artists who were subjected to the same disadvantages as I was having,” he says. “I admired the unifying effect of the collective; finding their own spaces to exhibit, and the consolidation of their networks.
JOHN LYONS FOLKLORE TRINIDAD EXHIBITION ART IDENTITY SURVIVAL
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