Jean Lyons paintings subtly mirror the patterns of the nature and manmade graphics.  These patterns inhabit simplified silhouettes such as trees, rocks and old buildings.  She uses black, grey and white and provides texture through her experimentation with matt and gloss surfaces.  Her oeuvre explores several contrasting themes that preoccupy her, including; displacement and belonging, chaos and harmony, objects of transience and permanence, limbo and certainty.

'This work continues my current series using mainly black and white and experimenting with matt and glossy surfaces. The intention is to create high key contrast images showing autumn and winter silhouettes against a vast sky.

The contrasting areas of gloss and matt and positive and negative space are used to induce balance and tension. This series uses landscape elements and motifs to explore receptivity and creativity, withdrawing and advancing, yielding and proceeding, precariousness and safe-keeping, transience and permanence, displacement and belonging.

I have used simplified silhouetted forms such as trees, rocks and old buildings, which are decorated and embellished with mottled patterns and flowers. These are repeated motifs inspired by natural patterns, but with links to man-made patterns such as combat camouflage and bar-codes.

Disparate ideas and themes that preoccupy me include displacement and belonging; chaos and harmony; objects of transience and permanence; limbo and certainty.

I'm inspired by the formal and monochromatic compositions of Japanese rock gardens and the amazing account by Oliver Sachs entitled The Island of the Colourblind. In this true story, the inhabitants of the island can only see in black and white and they describe their world in rich terms of pattern and tone, luminance and shadow.

Jean Lyons