G. Campbell Lyman

(Comes professionally framed in a solid maple floater frame, ready to hang) Artist's Statement "This series of intensely colorful paintings was begun a couple of years back in reaction to the gray oppressive weight that had descended like a pall on the American scene. I wanted to make paintings about nothing but pure delight, in honor of the fact that beneath the fog of germs and political antagonism, we still eat, laugh, love and if we're wise, acknowledge how spectacularly fortunate we are -- at least for now, in this time and place, despite the problems. For me, the colors, forms and brushstrokes here feel exuberant without suggesting an unnerving chaos. I have purposely used unlikely color combinations that despite their dissonance seem to work together. I don't feel this is a time to be making brooding works that reflect the problems we are working our way through; we all know about this. On the contrary, I think it's a time for art...

(NOTE: if you enter "Gridish" into the 1stDibs search field you will see others in this series come up) (Comes framed in a maple high-profile "floater" frame.) Artist’s Statement: ...

(Comes framed in a deep-profile maple floater frame, ready to hang.) Artist's Statement: "I was working on my loose, almost graffiti-like "Rosetta" series when this painting took a turn towards formality, and instead of trying to wrench it back into the Rosetta mold I just let it go where it wanted to. Has my usual insane assortment of mediums . . . " “Lyman’s work evolves restlessly, with the common elements generally being deft and unusual color choices that balance assonance and dissonance, and vestiges of the hand and facture purposely left in the paintings. The negative space is often so meticulously worked that it’s almost as if the objects – usually simple shapes – are there as much to complement the background as vice versa. Despite the often bold colors there is an elegance about his paintings that prevents them from being either loud or decorative. " Artbeit Zeitschrift “His paintings are a refreshing departure from the current abstract art world’s seemingly endless parade of fields of color with scribbles providing form, a style that is easily mimicked and has become a sort of “safe,” accessible go-to. There are confident decisions in these paintings appearing as commitments of strongly delineated forms and unexpected collisions of color that give the work a visceral, confident and playful soul, increasingly missing from contemporary expressionist abstraction. They are the paintings of a real painter rather than a decorative artist.” ArtSeen, 2018 (from a collector): "Love your work. We collect colorists like Wolf Kahn and Jennifer Bartlett, whom I commissioned a piece from that is in the entrance of Mayo Clinic. We are old fans...

Artist’s Statement: “I have been an abstract painter for over 30 years, and I can't exactly say what caused me to one night go to the studio and paint flowers, of all things. But of ...

(NOTE: if you enter "Gridish" into the 1stDibs search field you can view other paintings in this series) Artist’s Statement: “As I often do, I chose a very simple form to work with ...

(Comes professionally framed in a solid maple floater frame, ready to hang) Artist's Statement "This series of intensely colorful paintings was begun a couple of years back in reaction to the gray oppressive weight that had descended like a pall on the American scene. I wanted to make paintings about nothing but pure delight, in honor of the fact that beneath the fog of germs and political antagonism, we still eat, laugh, love and if we're wise, acknowledge how spectacularly fortunate we are -- at least for now, in this time and place, despite the problems. For me, the colors, forms and brushstrokes here feel exuberant without suggesting an unnerving chaos. I have purposely used unlikely color combinations that despite their dissonance seem to work together. I don't feel this is a time to be making brooding works that reflect the problems we are working our way through; we all know about this. On the contrary, I think it's a time for art...

Artist's Statement "College tuitions are headed my way, so I am letting go of some things I held on to from the past. This is from my Santa Fe series, the only one I have left. To m...

(Comes float-framed behind glass.) Artist's Statement: "I was working on my "Gridish" paintings (you can find them in a search on the term "Gridish" on this site) when I became fascinated with certain materials I was working with - a new type of super-flat, super-black paint; powdered graphite; and iron oxide pigment. I had a small canvas ready to go, and shifted my attention to concentrating on just one of the rectangular forms I had been using in the Gridish series, and applying these materials in a way that pleased me. That sort of industrial sheen on the surface of the rectangle is really beautiful to me. This was a second I made, on paper. Quite obviously the mood given off by these works is greatly different from the colorful Gridish paintings that spawned them. My daughter, studying design at RISD, said she found the pic I...