Charles Lyon

Gallery Affiliations: Groveland Galllery

Region: Midwest

A sense of place is important to me. It has also been illusive in my own life as I feel I live my life as a transient. In my paintings and photographs I look to recover that lost sense of place through records in paint and silver. Outside I observe the light as I walk over and through a landscape feeling the rise and fall of the land and the lateral bowing and bending of contours. Inside I struggle to make that refined dirt, paint, represent what I have seen. Recently, I had the opportunity to spend a month in the Badlands of South Dakota. It is a unique landscape where geologic time is conspicuous in eroded, horizontally banded forms. What a surprise to see these miniature mountain ranges appear and disappear depending on the time of day and direction of light. I am inspired by the Badlands' fragile beauty, both in its delicacy of palette and geological evanescence.