MOTHER OF ALL SINS / FANTASTIC SWEETNESS
Vancouver, Canada
2005 - 2006

EXHIBITION (Solo): University of British Columbia Student Union Gallery
November 21-28, 2006

"Mother of All Sins / Fantastic Sweetness"

This week-long exhibition featured a collection of 28 large, individual ART works by Briana Lyon. More than two thirds of these paintings were completed during a one year TIME period from October 2005 to November 2006. At the age of 20, Lyon had moved ALONE to Vancouver, Canada from her lifelong home in Southern California.
 
Lyon was very motivated to CREATE art. She was a full-time student in a rigorous academic liberal arts PROGRAM entitled Religion, Literature and the Arts and had recently sold a large PAINTING for the first time. The sale occurred at the Los Angeles County Fair's Millard Sheets Gallery for the Arts just as Lyon left the UNITED States. A poor college student, but deeply inspired by the new cultural and political SETTING of Western Canada, she scrawled out acrylic paintings on any materials she could find; favoring cardboard.

There were two significant cultural shifts Lyon was fascinated by: increased sexual EQUALITY and environmental awareness. Canada is rated as a top ten country for gender equality, while the United States is ranked in the thirties. The vapid INFLUENCE of Hollywood and the porn industry on Lyon's images of women became very apparent and a constant subject of her work. British Columbia's liberal West coast is also a hotbed of eco-progressive and localization TRENDS. It became an inherent part of the artist's life to consider SUSTAINABILITY in all matters.