Andrew Lyman
Region: South
However much we may want to, we cannot exist in the world
discreetly. People transform every environment around them
with the implications they carry, and even if we do not choose to
wave that banner of influence, we cannot cast it aside either, and
it sets us apart.
In my paintings, the human form is used as a symbol carrying
possibilities; people are deliberately vague of countenance
so as not to be individualized. What matters is that they are
there. Where there are people, there is memory, imagination,
misunderstanding, history—too much to name. The characters
in my paintings are quiet, inert, and observant. These figures
are always among the first elements put onto canvas, and the
remainder of the scene is built around them. In our unique
and often lamented dictatorial position within nature and the
world, we cannot exist any other way.
