Colin Lyons

Fusing printmaking, sculpture, and site-specific installation, Lyons’ work employs the chemistry of etching to reflect on issues around climate-engineering, extraction, alchemy, and brownfield rehabilitation. Lyons’ most recent site-based installations have been located in sacrificial landscapes such as tailing piles, historic flood infrastructure, decommissioned landfills, urban brownfields, and remote islands, where he develops contingency plans for the post-extraction landscapes we leave behind. These prototypes weave together speculative climate engineering trials to desalinate arctic waters, phyto-remediate contaminated soils using invasive plant species, and fertilize coastal ecosystems using dissolved industrial artifacts.

In recent years, Lyons has participated in residencies and fellowships with The Arctic Circle (Longyearbyen, Svalbard), ÖRES (Örö Island, Finland), MacDowell (Peterborough, New Hampshire), Frans Masereel Centrum (Kasterlee, Belgium), Rabbit Island (Lake Superior), The Grant Wood Fellowship (The University of Iowa), Klondike Institute of Art & Culture (Dawson City, Yukon), and Kala Art Institute (Berkeley, California). His work has been shown in more than 30 solo exhibitions, most recently at Galleria Ratamo (Jyväskylä), Rosemary Duffy Larson Gallery (Davie, Florida), Two Rivers Art Gallery, (Prince George, BC), SNAP Gallery (Edmonton, Alberta), Artcite (Windsor, Ontario), aceartinc (Winnipeg, Manitoba), CIRCA (Montreal, Quebec), and SPACES (Cleveland, Ohio), along with group exhibitions at International Print Center New York, Krakow International Print Triennial, Platform Stockholm, Museum London, and The Soap Factory, among others.

colinlyons.ca

Colin Lyons interview about Project Habbakuk @ ÖRES