Camie Lyons' latest body of work whirled into being through the COVID lens, a weirdly new and biting contextual frame. She worked incessantly, intensely and intuitively in her home studio at a time when the rest of the world shifted gear and pivoted onto a realigned and uncomfortable angle. And, when times become uncertain, the artist often catches back the truth of what they know. To make meaning.
With Lyons it was a spurring on, to work innately and interpretively, head down, searching for her reason.
Finding spontaneity when working in bronze is a challenge but for this body of work, Making Meaning, Lyons was able to draw on her innate process-knowledge, to allow the conceptual to overlay in an unrehearsed kind of way. The resultant exhibition draws on a lifetime of symbols from her toolkit. She’s comfortable in her medium and harnesses new meaning through her making. She’s not second guessing and the resultant works feel free, joyfully quickening their pace and alignment.
This work emerges through a uniquely intuitive process, flowing and ascending in a way that Lyons describes as “unprecedented”, here she’s found a different way of moving, within the creative process both physically and emotionally, with stoicism and focused intent.
Layered meanings from her past explorations emerge, twist and twirl in new directions and with a shifting perspective. Thought Clouds attach themselves to the walls while her more familiar circular dervishes triple over and melt away or catch you in the Noose that Binds. Animal Brains, as she calls her smaller table-top pieces, rest and move simultaneously, bringing with them the strength of life’s purpose.
Bronze is Lyon’s complicated, comfort medium, and Making Meaning shows her adaptability and resilience, in grabbing the unwieldy, she is freeing herself. Trusting her instincts, she dances her meaning.
Lyons has always felt an attraction to the impromptu, it comes from her artistic background in contemporary dance. It was always her favourite way into choreography and authentic expression, and it remains for her now, a way of moving forward within her sculptural language.
“Once you have trained for years, your body is conditioned, you have a collected repertoire of movement and gestures at your disposal. Now that muscular physicality is a lingering memory, but the assemblage process with my bronze steps feels the same. Before lockdown I happened to have many steps cast and I used this material as my way forward. I didn’t question too much, it was all I had. I found solace in the new time and space of unstructured days and in the manual repetition of welding and polishing. I lost time in this new strange flow and was absorbed into the flex and tension of the lines before me, searching for balance and quietening the anxious chatter. Making became my meaning, this impromptu process became a way forward into beauty and reason, and that, it turns out, is enough.”
Written by Jennine Primmer
