contact: colin@colinlyons.ca
Colin Lyons grew up in the birthplace of the North American oil industry, Petrolia, Ontario; an experience that has fueled his interests in industrial ruins and sacrificial landscapes. Fusing printmaking, installation, and chemical experiments, his work employs the chemistry of printmaking to reflect on issues around geo-engineering, extraction, alchemy, historical preservation, and brownfield rehabilitation.
Lyons received his BFA from Mount Allison University (2007) and MFA in printmaking from University of Alberta (2012). His most recent site-based installations have been located in sacrificial landscapes such as mine tailing piles, decommissioned landfills, historic flood infrastructure, urban brownfields, and remote islands. In recent years, Lyons has participated in fellowships and residencies at MacDowell (Peterborough, NH), The Arctic Circle Residency (Longyearbyen, Svalbard), ÖRES (Örö Island, Finland), 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 recent solo exhibitions at Galleria Ratamo (Jyväskylä, Finland), Aterlier Circulaire (Montreal, QC), Mesaros Gallery (West Virginia University), Rosemary Duffy Larson Gallery (Davie, FL), Two Rivers Art Gallery, (Prince George, BC), SNAP Gallery (Edmonton, AB), Artcite (Windsor, ON), aceartinc (Winnipeg, MB), CIRCA (Montreal, QC), Centre[3] (Hamilton, ON), and SPACES (Cleveland, OH), along with group exhibitions at International Print Center New York, Krakow International Print Triennial, International Print Biennale Yerevan, International Printmaking Biennial Douro, Platform Stockholm, Museum London, and The Soap Factory, among others. His projects have been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Quebec, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, The Santo Foundation, The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, and The National Trust for Historic Preservation.
He currently lives in Binghamton, New York, where he is an assistant professor at Binghamton University (SUNY).