www.canarywharf.com:
Unity of Opposites: Vortex is one of a number of works inspired by Michael Lyons visits to China, for whose culture he developed a deep affinity. Echoing the writings of Chinese philosophers, this sculpture has been described as embodying the tensions within modern society between materialistic cravings and spiritual needs.
www.michaellyonssculptor.co.uk, David Sweet:
It may be that the roots of all sculpture lie in the figure, but the subject of Greek art is not human physique but human consciousness. Sixth Century BC statues are not just weighty objects consisting of bone, sinew and gut. They also have perceptiveness eyes, skin and facial expressions which radiate outwards from their central material cores. Though no longer physically as substantial, it seems to me that the great achievement of Smith and Caro is somehow to have found equivalents to the figure s sense of itself and its space. The planes, colour, horizontal and vertical balance they use are almost extra-skeletally deployed facilities. One can take the plane as the physiognomy, the features composed in the characteristic act of facing; the colour perhaps corresponds to the eye and the gaze, while horizontality/verticality may be likened to the mind s awareness of the body s pose.
www.michaellyonssculptor.co.uk, David Sweet:
Lyons work continues these preoccupations by holding, against the metropolitan fashion, to a style which is derided either as formalist , meaning devoid of human interest, or pictorial , meaning contrary to the traditions of sculpture. Unless Grandjean and his colleagues can find a way to endow solid forms with the same quality of sentience possessed by post-Cubist constructions they are doomed to repeat the boring mistakes of the Fifties. Like the return to a feudal conception of picture-making advocated by [David] Redfern and [Laetitia] Yhap, an uncritical infatuation with mass will be a backward step, not just for painting and sculpture, but a backward step for us.
wwwhkarttutoring.com:
'During my first visit to China, I took a photograph of the beautiful lake in Hangzhou, with the sun blazing down on it and making the water look like molten steel. The lake has small boats on it, and is also famous for its lotuses. I imagined that I was in the cool womb of the lake, with the surface of the lake with the lotuses, boats and surrounding mountains above me. I wrote a poem about this and when the opportunity to make a huge work in Hangzhou arose, I translated the photographs and poem into a three dimensional model and it was enlarged by wonderful Chinese craftsmen into something that you could walk into and experience from many angles. It relates specifically to the city and the place it is architectural, narrative and poetic; I could only have done this work because I had these experiences in China. The sculpture was called The Lake Afire '
www.michaellyonssculptor.co.uk, David Sweet:
The Chinese art education system of the past few decades has almost completely neglected abstract art. However, since his first trip in 1993, Michael Lyons has taught many Chinese students to understand and produce works of abstract sculpture. Watching the artist in the process of making small models of his sculpture measuring less than an metre and then enlarging them to full scale works, has rendered abstract sculpture more approachable to Chinese students. At the same time the artist has absorbed many qualities of Chinese art. His ink-wash drawings for example, exhibit obvious Chinese influence. Similarly, working in clay on a steel armature was not part of his practice before his experience in China.
ww.wikipedia.org;
Michael Lyons RSA FRSS (10 July 1943 19 April 2019) was a British sculptor who was instrumental in the creation of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Unity of Opposites: Vortex is one of a number of works inspired by Michael Lyons visits to China, for whose culture he developed a deep affinity. Echoing the writings of Chinese philosophers, this sculpture has been described as embodying the tensions within modern society between materialistic cravings and spiritual needs.
www.michaellyonssculptor.co.uk, David Sweet:
It may be that the roots of all sculpture lie in the figure, but the subject of Greek art is not human physique but human consciousness. Sixth Century BC statues are not just weighty objects consisting of bone, sinew and gut. They also have perceptiveness eyes, skin and facial expressions which radiate outwards from their central material cores. Though no longer physically as substantial, it seems to me that the great achievement of Smith and Caro is somehow to have found equivalents to the figure s sense of itself and its space. The planes, colour, horizontal and vertical balance they use are almost extra-skeletally deployed facilities. One can take the plane as the physiognomy, the features composed in the characteristic act of facing; the colour perhaps corresponds to the eye and the gaze, while horizontality/verticality may be likened to the mind s awareness of the body s pose.
www.michaellyonssculptor.co.uk, David Sweet:
Lyons work continues these preoccupations by holding, against the metropolitan fashion, to a style which is derided either as formalist , meaning devoid of human interest, or pictorial , meaning contrary to the traditions of sculpture. Unless Grandjean and his colleagues can find a way to endow solid forms with the same quality of sentience possessed by post-Cubist constructions they are doomed to repeat the boring mistakes of the Fifties. Like the return to a feudal conception of picture-making advocated by [David] Redfern and [Laetitia] Yhap, an uncritical infatuation with mass will be a backward step, not just for painting and sculpture, but a backward step for us.
wwwhkarttutoring.com:
'During my first visit to China, I took a photograph of the beautiful lake in Hangzhou, with the sun blazing down on it and making the water look like molten steel. The lake has small boats on it, and is also famous for its lotuses. I imagined that I was in the cool womb of the lake, with the surface of the lake with the lotuses, boats and surrounding mountains above me. I wrote a poem about this and when the opportunity to make a huge work in Hangzhou arose, I translated the photographs and poem into a three dimensional model and it was enlarged by wonderful Chinese craftsmen into something that you could walk into and experience from many angles. It relates specifically to the city and the place it is architectural, narrative and poetic; I could only have done this work because I had these experiences in China. The sculpture was called The Lake Afire '
www.michaellyonssculptor.co.uk, David Sweet:
The Chinese art education system of the past few decades has almost completely neglected abstract art. However, since his first trip in 1993, Michael Lyons has taught many Chinese students to understand and produce works of abstract sculpture. Watching the artist in the process of making small models of his sculpture measuring less than an metre and then enlarging them to full scale works, has rendered abstract sculpture more approachable to Chinese students. At the same time the artist has absorbed many qualities of Chinese art. His ink-wash drawings for example, exhibit obvious Chinese influence. Similarly, working in clay on a steel armature was not part of his practice before his experience in China.
ww.wikipedia.org;
Michael Lyons RSA FRSS (10 July 1943 19 April 2019) was a British sculptor who was instrumental in the creation of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.