Brendan Lyons has been a vocal advocate for painters for as long as I’ve known him. That work filters into a practice obsessively focussed on the material properties of the medium itself, because, well, how could you advocate without knowledge?
His latest exhibition at Bridewell Studios & Gallery, Discreet Discrete felt like (and I mean this positively) someone showing off with all their might; “Look at what I can do. Look what I created”. Somewhere between Tom Hanks creating fire in Castaway and Tom Hanks creating fire in Toy Story. That spirit of freedom, playfulness and creation flowed through every work in this show, but it was also incredibly regimented.
The gallery was presented as a gallery in a traditional sense. The works were hung with curatorial considerations of the space and each other, so while, yes, you could be looking at a dystopian public bathroom, you’re not and you know it.
You know, from first entry that this show is art. Not because of the playful splashes of paint running from the ends of the ‘paper’, but because the hand towel dispensers are spaced for viewing, not utility. Because the picture hook, displayed by itself, centrally above the fireplace, is given its own space. Because the metres and metres of acrylic tape are lit down on a pristine glass shelf, offering shadow as essential, not optional.
There are so many dreams that Brendan Lyons has for this work, so many possible alternative outcomes, where each series could be something of its own, but here, together, these painted creations offer playful, precise, discovery in bulk and its mesmerising.
The exhibition will be over when you read this, but you can follow Brendan and his work online for future iterations of similar collections, and exciting projects for later in the year.
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Discreet Discrete by Brendan Lyons at Bridewell Studios & Gallery is now closed
Follow Brendan Lyons at
@brendanlyonsart
Words, Patrick Kirk-Smith
