JOHN LYONS: Unmasking the Psyche

About

The creative energy which inhabits the canvases of painter and poet John Lyons is inspirationally generated by the vibrancy of the folklore and phantasmagorial pageantry of carnival. It is eminently reasonable to assume that the interaction of the multi-cultural homogeneity of African, Spanish, French, Indian and Chinese in the colonial days of Trinidad & Tobago predisposed over a period of time the conditions for the proliferation of such a rich folklore and a flamboyant, inventive carnival.

I remember John Lyons in Zamana Studio, which we shared many years ago, when with loaded paint brush and gestures of intuitive spontaneity he produced his magical canvases. As John himself said in one of his press releases: “Although my paintings appear as figurative …... they eschew illustration”; and he continued, “...discovered colour-forms in my intuitive response to the drama of gestural brush strokes on the canvas is for me a creative adventure”.

Adrian Henry (1932 -2000), himself a celebrated painter and poet, had this to say about John’s paintings: “Despite the dark ambiguities of the imagery, in which Carnival also seems to be a Dance of Death, it is like Lyons’ best work, joyful and celebratory.”(Catalogue – Behind The Carnival 1992) Henry here paints a perfect picture that unfolds the complexity of Lyons’ inner space. He presents a narrative that captures the inner sacrament of the artist and his vision. In my view, Lyons’ work with its movements, distortions and vibrant, non-naturalistic colour brings to mind a legacy of Expressionism and Surrealism, albeit through the creative sensibilities and authenticity of an artist who lived through, from his early years to adulthood, the folklore and carnival of Trinidad & Tobago. This is that element of his creative, artistic practice which imbues his paintings, and I dare say, his poetry, with a strong aspect of originality; it comes from the soul of his motherland. The overall impression of his canvases is a uniquely seductive evocation of colourful dreamlike imagery which has resonances in the archetypal and universal. John Lyons is the only Caribbean British painter addressing this artistic paradigm at this present time.

Alnoor Mitha FRSA
Senior Research Fellow/curator/artist
Manchester School of Art