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SHIV LYONS

Discipline:

MULTI-DISCIPLINARY ARTIST

Location:

SHEFFIELD / LONDON

ABOUT:

‘NOW THEN..I’m a jack of all trades me, master of none — and I’ve made my peace with that. I’m a multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores feminism, identity, sexuality, power, trauma, memory and desire, usually with a raised eyebrow and sometimes a cheeky sense of humour...

Creativity is my survival tool. It’s how I make sense of the world and of myself, and the one place I can reliably return to when everything else feels incoherent — the place where chaos, rage and wounds that refuse to heal can be channelled, rearranged, and sometimes softened.
My work lives in the contradiction between the pain of being pure at heart and being harder than coffin nails…

Alongside my own practice, I’ve spent over twenty years working in the fashion industry as a stylist and creative director, and on a labour of pure love; a feminist publication - 'The September Issues Magazine.'

For the past decade, I’ve also worked in higher education, teaching and supporting emerging creatives. These parallel lives inform the way I think, make and collaborate — practical, intuitive, and grounded in real-world experience.

I don’t make work to compete, impress or perform. I make it for myself first. The work is an extension of the self — confessional, messy, and often uncomfortable — but never without wit. If it wakes something up in me, it has done its job. If it then wakes something up in someone else, even better, that's a Brucie Bonus. It doesn’t have to be the same thing.

We need art and we need artists, now more than ever.
Art makes the world feel less unbearable.
If my work does anything, I hope it touches them by making ’think'— and maybe laugh at the wrong moment...

WORKS:

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'Working Class Creatives' responds to a need which is too often overlooked in the arts; that of the barriers facing working-class artists from getting on in our sector. They are instrumental in initiating much-needed change that will see the art world become more inclusive and reflect the society it purports to serve. I often search their database in my research, it is a vital resource for any arts professional working in culture today. That they have got this far on so little financial resource is remarkable and I am excited to see what they will achieve with further support.” Beth Hughes, Curator, Arts Council Collection.

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