Skip to Content

The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Kat Lyons: Early Paradise

Dec 9, 2021 – Jan 15, 2022
54 Eastcastle St, London W1W 8EF, United Kingdom

The American artist Kat Lyons grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, in the early 1990s. Due to her upbringing, she knows all about the intricacies of livestock farming. But she rejects an anthropocentric outlook and instead treats each pest, pet, and beast as equal to human beings. Her paintings capture creaturely anxiety, grief at the prospect of death and abandonment. They sometimes read like eerie theatrical vignettes. This exhibition puts 13 new works on view, including Earthward Love, a painting of a cow arching skinless, butchered, over other animals at the farm. There is innate horror in the image, which turns a pastoral scene into a slaughterhouse. —E.C.

Kat Lyons, “Earthward Love,” 2021 © courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias, London.