Guy Lyman

Hegemon, -2010
Adhesive,Charcoal,Tar,House Paint,Oil Paint,Acrylic Paint
16 x 20 in
SOLD
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An extremely complex painting consisting of paper mounted on canvas, employing an array of materials including tar. Here is the Artist's Statement: "I began this painting with the basic form created by the tar in the middle. I was not looking for a "clean" appearance in this painting, and as I manipulated the paper, marks from my fingers - which had all kinds of colors and materials on them - began to appear around the edges. I loved the way this looked. After I mounted the paper on canvas, I added more marks, not only to the central section on paper but on the canvas around it as well, and pushed the industrial appearance using house paint over the white acrylic prime of the canvas. There is very minimal color here, on purpose. I think just those very small passages of color have a big effect. I love the way this painting turned out." This work comes framed in a handsome high-profile float 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.