Before settling in Minnesota in 1994, Charles Lyon spent over a decade living in the high Arizona desert where he taught photography, rock climbing and kayaking. As he spent more and more time in that wilderness he developed a heightened interest in color. Setting aside black and white photography Lyon began to work in textiles and later, pastels. After his move to Minneapolis, Lyon returned to school to study painting and received his MFA degree from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1999. In 2005, Lyon was chosen to be an Artist In Residence in Badlands National Park. In 2007, Lyon painted an ornament representing the park for the White House Christmas tree. Most recently, Lyon was awarded a 2009 Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board for continued work on his paintings of snow in the city.
"What I have seen in South Dakota is influencing what I see here in Minneapolis. Last winter while walking in the parking lot of my studio building, I recognized I was surrounded by snow piles that resembled some of the valleys and mountains I had been painting out West. Although these 'false' mountains were created by snow removal equipment, they had an unruly presence that was both natural and wild. The contradictions that these piles represented, this urban disposal of 'nature', attracted me to them. I was confused and elated. Snow had the power to reframe my surroundings.I like how snow obscures and abstracts the forms of the city simplifying the complex visual stimulus around us. Yet it reveals as much as it conceals. Reducing the world to a palette of grays, whites and blues makes for a pleasing harmony. Looking at snow has made me rethink my bias of only seeing nature in the context of wilderness. It has made me ask 'What does nature look like in the city?'"
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