Artist Talk: Robert Lyons

Saturday, April 21, 11:00 am

Join us for a conversation with photographers Robert Lyons and Dru Donovan. Lyons and Donovan will discuss the work in Lyons' current exhibition, One Eye Crying on view through June 2nd. 

Best known for his richly complex photographs of Africa, Robert Lyons color series One Eye Crying focuses specifically on Easthampton, Massachusetts, a location steeped in art historical and personal significance for the artist. The light and landscape of Northeastern America has long been a source of inspiration of painters and photographers, most famously idealized by generations of painters of the Hudson School among others. A sense of discovery resonates through the series as Lyons captures authentic moments of connection and recognition in his portraits, still lifes and landscapes. Set among overgrown vertiginous backgrounds, cloudy grey parking lots or forgotten wooded roadsides, Lyons makes pictures that inspire curiosity and longing for the stories his subjects could tell.

Robert Lyons received his BA in Photography from Hampshire College (Amherst, MA) and his MFA from Yale University (New Haven, CT). Lyons’ work has been shown internationally for forty years, including exhibitions at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park (Lincoln, MA), Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, (Kansas City, MO), Henry Art Gallery (Seattle, WA) and the Seattle Art Museum (Seattle, WA). He is a recipient of the Ford Foundation Fellowship and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has published several books, including Who Decides?, Intimate Enemy: Images and Voices of the Rwandan Genocide, Another Africa and Egyptian Time. His work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY), Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR), Seattle Art Museum (Seattle, WA) and Henry Art Gallery (Seattle, WA).

Dru Donovan's photographs and videos have been shown in museums and galleries both nationally and internationally including the California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art (Newport Beach, CA). Donovan was the recipient of the John Gutmann Fellowship in 2015 and was a Guggenheim fellow in 2016. She is an Assistant Professor of Art with Term at Lewis & Clark College.