Guy Lyman

The Announcement, 2020
Tar,Oil Paint,Acrylic Paint
20 x 16 in
$400
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Part of the current series of paintings using tar and house paint in addition to more conventional artists' media such as oil and acrylic. Artist's Statement: "I have been making these painting beginning with a basic form using tar, a materials I worked with way back that I have begun using again because of its extraordinary beauty and physical principles. Then I go in with oil and acrylic, and generally use the house paint to flatten the surface and add to the negative space, reducing the more solid forms that push forward. These paintings are built up with many layers. I have been using a very limited color palette, but I painted the past few as the coronavirus has been raging here in New Orleans, and gave myself a little latitude in search of light."


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.