Guy Lyman

Gridish #2, 2021
Charcoal,Varnish,House Paint,Acrylic Paint,Handmade Paper
20 x 16 in
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As I often do, I chose a very simple form to work with here – a grid of rectangles. Content never interests me much, and I don’t spend time thinking about it. I’m interested in the balance of assonant and dissonant colors, line quality, texture and impasto, push and pull, these sorts of issues. Making these paintings was a series of minute decisions about addition and subtraction that goes on for a long time, even if the result looks deceptively simple. It’s never simple to do. I chose a glossy, candy varnish for these. Comes pre-framed and ready to hang, in a white floater frame.


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.