Eve Chayes Lyman
Eve Chayes Lyman is an artist, documentary photographer, videographer and activist based in Guatemala. She graduated from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (SMFA).
Her work has been shown in Boston, Los Angeles, Denver and Guatemala, where she now lives. She is a member of the Los Angeles Art Association
Eve Chayes Lyman CV
Photography www.theeyeofthebeholder.net
Artist Statement
My art is deeply emotional in nature - responding to the world around and within me in a personal way. The inspiration for much of my work is found in the figure, with its infinite capacity to express and embody the complexity of what it means to be human. I am moved by the suffering that each of us encounters in our sojourn here, and inspired by the transcendence of the human spirit which is so often a response to that suffering. Joy and pain are joined and juxtaposed.
The art I make expresses a passion for the humanness I have discovered in people from all walks of life, in all corners of the globe. As the world becomes increasingly polarized and destructive, my work carries a thread of the common humanity that runs through us all.
I have always been drawn to “the other” ...perhaps because through what is unfamiliar, I discover “the other” in myself - the rejected, neglected, uncomfortable or undiscovered parts... Perhaps God is also “the other”. The numinous, unseen world of spirit and soul - might that not also be the unknown and unknowable part of our own selves we so long for?
Making art is a journey into the unknown. I find that every genuine act of self expression is an act of courage.
I regard art making as a sacred trust. As a world, we need art - to touch something in us we might not otherwise have found, to awake something perhaps dormant, to open our eyes and allow us to see freshly, to ‘move’ us in all the many senses of the word. To “heal ourselves from numbness” as Krzysztof Wodiczko once said. We need art to remind ourselves of our own humanity. I know I do.