Rob Lyon, Sweeping panorama of lacerations, 2025, oil on linen, 33 1/2 x 31 1/2 x 1 inches
Contributed by Peter Schroth / Anyone with an aversion to charm might want to sidestep Rob Lyon’s seductive show at Hales Gallery. Those seeking a diversion from the world’s traumas may find a refuge there. From Sussex, England, the artist finds his inspiration in the local landscape – a common point of reference for modern British painters. Their ghosts and others’ are clearly traceable here. Indications emerge of several additional painting traditions. Lyon borrows freely from his British forbears – note his use of rosy sand and faded blues in line with their penchant for muted palettes – but also from the Cubists and Giorgio Morandi.
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Inspirations seem to include both Nicholsons – William, who painted the Chalk Cliffs, and his son Ben, whose brand of Cubism found expression in both landscape and still life. Paul Nash’s influence, particularly his 1935 work Equivalents for the Monoliths, also surfaces. Here the Cubist look may be a matter of style over analytic consideration, expression over structure. They are lyrical and “spiritual” as opposed to formal, and unmistakably personal. And though still life structures appear, the paintings seem more focused on place.
Lyon draws on Cubism to flatten shape and space and animate pattern and texture. He adds his own vocabulary of curious shapes – amalgams of natural forms and artificial structures. Despite titles that reference the land and vegetation, the paintings distinctly evokes shoreline and sea, hinting at sails and masts. One might picture a Sussex marina. Reinforcing this impression is a palette of sandy pinks and aqua blues. Many compositions are anchored by the recurring use of a horizontal line spanning edge to edge as horizon or tabletop. The tabletop reading naturally leads to still life and, when combined with the pastel palette and centrally grouped forms, instantly recalls Morandi – the “realist” who turned modernist notions of space into a game of visual conundrums.
Lyon’s method is distinctive. Thin paint generates lush sensations with color that is washed on or dry-brushed with a feather-light touch, leaving the canvas edge casually untended. Significantly, the linen is not merely a substrate but a partner to the paint. The challenge lies in how delicately he can apply the brush and still leave a visible trace. At times, the marks appear to be made with actual pastels. There is no apparent reworking or layering, reflecting an exercise in control and restraint – a one-shot proposition to get it right or not. Surface delicacy belies the effort, skill, and risk necessary to achieve such results. The effect is one of painting the air itself. The shapes seem to be molecularly fused with the atmosphere.
Gentleness and benevolence pervade these paintings. They compose a storm-free world with no implication of past tragedy or future threat. While there are many moons, there is no moonlight; these are daytime orbs that possess their own beauty and mystery. Darkness has rarely been more inviting than in Copse (distant light), where the comforts of the day persist after nightfall. It’s a seamless melding of history, style, and technique – evidence that painting arises from lived experience, which Lyon hybridizes with the art of the past into succinct, cohesive statements.
These are state-of-mind works where the view is inward as well as outward, and the artist’s ideals are his ultimate subject. A line about Ben Nicholson from Artnet feels apt: “there is a sense of honoring the beauty of landscape and life lived within it using a harmonious combination of color, line, and shape.” Rob Lyon convincingly suggests that such things still matter.
“Rob Lyon: When There Were More Moons,” Hales Gallery, 547 West 20th Street, New York, NY. Through December 20, 2025.
About the author: Peter Schroth is a Brooklyn-based painter.
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