Christiane Lyons

Some Women: A Total Portrait with No Omissions is a solo exhibition of new paintings of the ongoing series Some Women by the San Francisco artist Christiane Lyons, which continuing a practice driven by investigation into the painting process and the use of appropriate materials, the series focuses on the reinterpretation of the female figure in portraiture. The title of the painting is divided into two parts and reiterates her exploration of the subject/object dichotomy.

Through the manipulation of the female figure, the artist confronts the conceptual and material aspects of the subject/object dichotomy in figurative painting. In her paintings, she explores the cycle of objectification of women throughout art history and culture by distorting the female body, while attempting to break this cycle by giving her figures subjectivity. This distortion is manifested in the use of multiple found images of female bodies to create a female figure in each painting. She appropriates material from random internet image searches, from social media to fashion photography, because, in her opinion, these images of women are common to women around the world, from all cultures and of all ages influence.

The use of the name oil paint is a means she borrowed from the painter James McNeil Whistler, who wanted to dilute the narrative content of his work and direct the viewer's attention to the artist's manipulation of the paint. In these paintings, the artist also pays attention to the tension between the figures and the background, pushing each person of equal weight through her manipulation of the painting and appropriation of art historical canons, and studying the tension between the subject and the object.
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