Paintings inspired by carnival
and folklore of Trinidad & Tobago

Felix & Spear 10 June – 17 July 2022

Meet the artist: Sat 25 June 12-3 pm

b.1933 Port-of-Spain, Trinidad,
Lives and works in Cambridgeshire, England.

Trinidad-born painter and poet, John Lyons arrived from Trinidad to England in 1959 to study at Goldsmiths College School of Art and Design. He graduated as a painter in 1964 and in 1965 he went on to the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne to study for an Art Teachers’ Diploma. During a 27-year teaching career, he continued his painting and writing with dedicated enthusiasm. John Lyons retired as a college lecturer in art and design and was then able to devote himself not only to his writing and painting but also to be involved with a number of art organisations for the promotion of visual arts in the UK: He was a member of the purchasing panel for the Arts Council Collection, an adjudicator for a number of art awards, among them the Whitechapel Young Artist Award; he was also an exhibition selector for Cartwright Hall, Bradford; Nottingham Castle Museum and Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston. In 1998 Lyons was co-founder and Director with Jean Rees, playwright, poet and arts activist, of the Hourglass Studio Gallery and its charity funded-arm, HEADS (Hourglass Educational Arts Development Services) for the promotion of the arts in the community in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. John Lyons has taken part in numerous group exhibitions. The most notable are Life Between Islands, British-Caribbean Art The 50’s -Now, Tate Britain Dec 2021 – 2022, Super Black, Firstsite Art Gallery, Colchester 2019, No Colour Bar, Black British Art in Action, Guildhall Gallery, London 2016, The Hayward Annual 1982 British Drawing South Bank Centre London. There have been fourteen solo exhibitions of Lyons’ work nationally, two of which were, Mythopoeia a touring exhibition from Wrexham Arts Centre 1997, and Behind The Carnival, from Huddersfield Art Gallery 1992-94. As a prize-winning poet, John Lyons’ poems are numerously anthologised; and he has seven full published collections of poetry. In 2016 his collection for children, Dancing in The Rain was shortlisted for the CLiPPA Award; and he was on the judging panel for the 2022 of the CLiPPA Award. His contribution to Arts in the UK was acknowledged with the Arts Council sponsored Windrush Arts Achievement Award in 2003.

Felix & Spear, 71 St. Mary’s Road, London W5 5RG
Tel: 020 8566 1574; info@felixandspear.com
Wed-Fri 11-6; Sat-Sun 12-3