I Am in Love With the World

23 April – 23  May 2010
The Jam Factory, Oxford

For her first solo exhibition at the Jam Factory in Oxford Josephine Lyons is to present new and recent paintings and sculptures. The exhibition will showcase Oxford-based Lyons’ characteristically exuberant vision, her use of compelling and joyful imagery, and her unique engagement with art history.

I’m in love with the world presents a subjective and open ended narrative. It explores the way meaningful connections are created between disparate experiences and between works of art, using this to making one coherent work from a range individual ‘moments’. The notion of self portraiture is key to her work, as is the idea that a subject can be developed and understood through a series of different moments, motifs or images. In the exhibition Lyons treats each artwork as part of a greater whole, much as in an orchestra a violin or a cello contributes to the overall creation. Primarily a painter, Lyons is interested creating beautiful new forms and images and in creating work that is both complex and evocative, and accessible.

Lyons was encouraged to paint from the age of four. She was much influenced by her art teacher at Wimbledon High School, Calan Lewis, who sadly recently passed away, who asked her to paint what she felt, and thereby gave her a new language to communicate with. In addition she cites artists as varied as Tracey Emin, Roi Vaara’s, Howard Hodgkin’s, Turner, Cranach, Picasso, Van Gogh, Matisse, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, and Regina Jose Galindo, as being important for her.

The Jam Factory, Oxford, 27 Park End Street, OX1 1HU, 01865 244613, Opening times, 10am – 11pm, Monday – Sunday, Opening 22nd of April, 6-9pm

Josephine Lyons (born 1983, England) studied at Goldsmiths (2002-2006). She has exhibited in group exhibition in London and Oxford including, ‘Opera and art’ at Covent Garden Film Studios (2007). Her first solo exhibition, Unexpected Signs and Location of other Realms, was held in the old Woolworths building in Crouch End, London, in June 2009. Josephine Lyons lives and works in Oxford.