art

Be minimum

irlandesuk art, poetry

lake_detail

                           Landscape, John Lyons (oil on canvas)

History – dead time – a past buried in
a chromatic wilderness – a burnt match
floating in a pool of dark rainwater –
an old hair on an old pillow case  Be
minimum  – with your words – in your actions
Resolve to move forward
                                   to write new texts
in a world of warmth and affection  The
past is scribble of fret and fear and
fate beyond absolution  Be mini-
mum  Cut to the quick  Courage – conviction
Angels will appear on the edge of night
By day they will mingle with sparrows and
crows  She who is not worthy will lose her
way  Exercise discretion
                                     Say no more

John Lyons

A salute to Robert Rauschenberg (2017)

irlandesuk art, poetry ,

charlene

Charlene, Robert Rauschenberg (1954)

Let’s throw some words at the page
           see if they stick :
at this frail moment in time
           I have no aspirations
I am neither a painter nor a pianist
           but my imagination flickers still
I am a collage doused in my own colours
           and not at all sure I have
the temperament for heaven
           wherever that is

but I do love music and horses
           and the way a canvas can draw me in
a composition that takes a firm grip
           on my eye and offers me easy entry
doors or gates of perception I don’t mind
           what’s in a label ?
whether it is nobler ?
           beauty happens it just does as does truth
so remove the gauze from your eyes
           put everything else aside
and get stuck into your life
           how many do you think you have ?
comb the world for affections
           and any found objects you can keep
in your silk-screened closet
           be a chancer more than refusenik
erasure is the highest form of creation
           its space affords a prelude
to multiple afterthoughts
           and many other finer things
so please pay attention
           isn’t that the message ?

John Lyons

Jackson Pollock rules

irlandesuk art, poetry

Pollock_untitled
                           Jackson Pollock, Untitled

Days tumble one after the other   dawn
to dusk   Sometimes
                   in pure broad light   sometimes
through an empty indeterminate dark
in which newspapers pave the way for time
to progress    segmenting our lives into
events while extolling humanity’s
wounds and achievements
                            Art seeks to oppose
the indifference to simple being
in which jewels are jingled as trophies
worthless possessions heralded as signs
of worth and social standing   Thus Jackson
Pollock rescued the rectangle and re-
vealed the sinews of a chaotic world
Promethean pigments poured on canvas

John Lyons

Ode to Joy

irlandesuk art, poetry ,

Ode to Joy

Ode to Joy, Joan Mitchell (oil on canvas, 1970)

Ode to Joy

Within these words   many silences   I
have nothing to say and I’m saying it
Overnight the world
                         has turned green  :  oak
ash   sycamore on the skyline   The sap
has risen and nature is rejoicing
The daffodils accomplish nothing   nor
does the cherry blossom now lining the
gutter    I think of space as silent dis-
tance I think of time as silent space   wait-
ing to be used    No more dying Frank wrote
in his ode to joy and then he died   This
is life     the bare bones of it   the warm soft
tissue of it    Live it and love it while
you can before cold death
                                puts you to bed

John Lyons

Click on the painting to follow a link to the Joan Mitchell Foundation

Tangled web

irlandesuk art, poetry

Jack11
Tangled web, John Lyons (70 x 50 cm, oil and enamel paint on canvas)

We have been 
over this ground
a thousand times
she said

This is the tangled web
we have woven—
a landscape 
in which we can
barely distinguish
the wood for the trees

John Lyons

Just like love

irlandesuk art, poetry

Venetian red

             Venetian red, John Lyons (40 x 40, oil on canvas)

Out of the red earth
        a light warm pigment
from pure ferric oxide
        the iron in the blood
of Renaissance art
        used with lime white
to create skin tones
        faces and hands
and naked bodies

Here in the background
        to an embryonic study
of a human head
        a first pass over
the main features
        to relay the exacting
geometry of eyes
        forehead chin nose
and mouth : a synthesis
        like all art — statement
and understatement
        observation and adjustment
much like life
        much like love

John Lyons

How Beautiful You Are

irlandesuk art, poetry , , ,

Art or a shared thought
        a certain fixed combination
of words or shapes
        or numbers in a mathematical
formula : a theorem or
        a theory

How when they are captured
        they transcend time and space —
the eternal curves of the lines
        presented on canvas
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
        that transport us to 1907
and beyond

They mixed pigments
        by the fireside
before daubing the walls : later
        panels or cloth stretched
on a frame that allowed
        the walls to be transported

Is it the heart
        or the mind that delights
in infinite things ?
        Let’s call them
death cheaters

Art
        Imagination
Creation
        The music of the spheres
harmony abounds
        and our senses
soak it all up

How beautiful the nightingale
        How beautiful the Grecian Urn
Autumn fields heavy with dew
        The cold North
and the warm South
        The drowsy Mediterranean

How beautiful the body
        How beautiful life
How beautiful love
        How beautiful the air
we breathe    How beautiful
        you are

John Lyons

Highly recommended, The Cloud of Witness a retrospective of paintings by Keith Cunningham at the Newport Street Gallery till 21 August 2022. Free admission.

Bones of the earth

irlandesuk art, poetry

face_detail
                   Face detail in earth pigments, John Lyons

That constant urge
        to create—to re-present
the world around us
        upon stretched cloth
that grows in the fields
        daubed with silica and clay
with manganese
        and hydrated iron oxide

We carry these pigments
        in our bones
we who have sprung
        from the very bones
of the earth
        all the hardness
and the softness
        of our bodies
and our eyes
        devouring everything
we see
        shape and colour
texture and weight
        our lives a constant
interpretation
        of what it means
to be and to live
        and to love

John Lyons

Portrait of the artist

irlandesuk art, poetry

Revised face
               Face, John Lyons (40 x 40 cm, oil on canvas)

I know this face
        from somewhere
those piercing eyes
        looking out from the canvas

There have been subtle shifts
        since it last appeared
alterations in the tone—
        the cadmium red sharpened
the yellow ochre lightened
        the titanium white
slightly buffed to lower
        the intensity

I think of this study
        as a field or a terrain
out of which an image
        emerges organically
much as though
        it were alive

I like the uneven
        surface of the land
the imperfections
        the different shades
and tones

a face from the earth
        and of the earth
dust of my dust
        which once was

John Lyons