Kat Lyons

Kat Lyons’s (b. 1991, Louisville, Kentucky) practice explores the complexities of earthly life to question the limitations of human categorisation and understanding. Her compositions aim to transcend anthropocentric realities by presenting her subjects across various planes of existence, challenging normative frameworks of perception and welcoming the natural world as a force of agential and moral significance. Lyons is interested in the experience of nonhuman beings living in a human-dominated world, recognising their service as both physical and symbolic capital. Lyons looks toward histories of nonhuman use for human advancement to reckon with our current and future relations, including: biomedical studies, agricultural modifications, and technological explorations. Her theatrical vignettes of nonhuman animals and vegetation are wrought with both an eeriness and beauty to imply these phenomena are not inextricable experiences - rather they are entwined in the common experience of all life on earth.

Lyons completed a BFA at Virginia Commonwealth University. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2019) and the Shandaken Paint School (2020). Recent solo and group shows include: Herd, Pilar Corrias, London (2024); CYCLES, TANK, Shanghai (2023); PRESENT ’23: Building the Scantland Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus (2023); A Journey, Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2023); Au-delà, Lafayette Anticipations, Paris (2022); Fire Figure Fantasy, Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Miami (2022), and Early Paradise, Pilar Corrias, London (2021). Lyons’ work has recently been acquired by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Frye Art Museum, Seattle; Longlati Foundation, Shanghai, and Yuz Museum, Shanghai, amongst others.