Guy Lyman

Exit from Port Arthur, 2006
Lacquer,House Paint,Oil Paint,Acrylic Paint,Wood Panel,Foam Board
30 x 24 in
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This painting is from a time when I was channeling my hero Robert Rauschenberg, and I kept it because I really liked it. There are all kinds of things going on, and all sorts of media. Somewhat like his combine paintings. Port Arthur, FYI, is the small Texas town Rauschenberg grew up in, before moving to New York to live with Jasper Johns, when both were window dressers before they were discovered and became the two greatest artists in America.


I have been painting for about 30 years, since before I was a dealer. I always was and remain most drawn to so-called “painterly” painters, whose interest is less in the formal aspects of painting than in the paint itself, and signs of the artist’s hand in its application. Initially I was drawn to paintings from the magical period between New York Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, by artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Jim Dine and Cy Twombly. In the Eighties, it was New York neo-Expressionists such as Julian Schnabel, Terry Winters and Donald Baechler. As you can see, in the past few years my paintings have become more formal, but you can still see a lot of the hand in them. I grew up in New Orleans, lived in various places in the U.S. and Europe, then returned to "the Big Easy" to open my Magazine Street gallery, which I sold in 2017 before moving my art business entirely online. I still enjoy meeting fellow art collectors and painters when they visit New Orleans.