Sarah Lyon Debuts New Work with Solo Show, July 2009
The Green Building Gallery
732 East Market Street, Louisville Kentucky
Through: August 28th, 2009
Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday 9am-6pm
Opening: July 3rd, 2009 5-9pm
Louisville, KY- The Green Building Gallery is pleased to present a series of new work by local photographer Sarah Lyon. Debuting material prepared in 2009, the show features both black and white and color photography but goes beyond to explore bronze casting and installation.
Lyon’s fourth solo show in Louisville has her exploring everything from her city and country to the local Goodwill and a nearby foundry. Inspiration came from a challenge she gave herself to overcome distracting habits that had infringed upon her art making in the past. “It’s amazing how productive I realized I can be when every evening is not taken up by drinking,” says Lyon.
Lyon explored the lost wax casting process with a piece titled “30,000 miles”, a bronze casting of her old motorcycle boots which she wore throughout four cross-country motorcycle journeys starting in the summer of 2003. “During those motorcycle trips I pursued photography projects that established my identity as an artist. To express the enduring, personal influence of those journeys I created a manifestation to outlast me,” Lyon says of the piece.
In another subject, Lyon hung a large map of Louisville on the wall and threw darts to determine where she would go to photograph. The result is a grid of 50 black and white photographs taken around the city. In deciding how to frame this project, she created “Somewhere Over the Framebow”, a contemporary assemblage of white-painted picture frames, ranging from whimsical to the ordinary, in which she explores feelings of nostalgia, emptiness, curiosity and playfulness.
The group of work will also include four large color prints of spaces around Louisville, a continuation of her “Louisville Portraits and Landscapes” series.
Lyon was born in Louisville and received her BFA from Miami University of Ohio. Her self published 2007, 2008 and 2009 Female Mechanics Calendars have received great response in the United States and internationally as the first of their kind. Her work has also been published in Esquire, Hutch, Trespass, Sustain, Bejeezus, Truckers News, Urban Moto, BMW Owners News, Curve, Today’s Woman, and Louisville Magazine. Lyon lives and works in Smoketown and teaches black and white photography at Bellarmine University.