Award-winning sculptor to show work at Nazareth College Arts Center!

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Elizabeth Lyons; Details Shovels: glass, wood steel; Calipers: cast resin; Natural Form Chandelier: sculpted glass, stainless

ROCHESTER, NY (08/30/2012)(readMedia)-- Show runs September 28-October 28, 2012; Artist reception October 4, 6-9pm; The Arts Center Gallery is open Sunday noon-5pm; Tuesday-Thursday, noon-5pm; Friday-Saturday, noon-8pm; automated info line: (585)389-5073

The Arts Center Gallery within the Nazareth College Arts Center will host an exhibition of sculpture by artist Elizabeth Lyons beginning September 28.

Lyons is an award-winning artist and sculptor who works in glass and a range of other materials. She is the owner of Elizabeth Lyons Glass, through which she produces a design collection that includes decorative objects and chandeliers, and More Fire Glass Studio, a 4,000-square-foot glassmaking facility dedicated to the production of both design and sculptural work. Her sculptural work, which has been displayed at top New York galleries, incorporates blown and cast glass, cement, wood, metal, and found objects. She creates pieces that are beautiful and raw, polished and rough, and strong yet vulnerable.

"I am interested in the primal relationships of fire-molten glass, metal, sand-earth, wood; constructing a parallel between process and material object," Lyons says of her work. "Each piece takes on its own qualities of light, texture and form, defining space and a sense of age and time. Contrasting blown and cast glass forms with steel, paint, and found objects broadens the vocabulary. The use of glass in my work goes beyond the beauty of the material, to emphasize the rawness of it in its most basic states: hot, cool, and cold. This elemental quality is inherent to the material and fundamental to how I use it."

The works Lyons will exhibit at the Nazareth College Arts Center Gallery are excerpts from sculptural investigations that she began in 1992 and continues today.

Ritual Vessels: "The powerful traditions that integrate myth and magic were sources of inspiration for this earlier work," Lyons says. These pieces are "vessel forms that refer to family, place, health, growth, memory, and rites of passage. In this series, glass organs, representing the pulse of life, are completed with cast bronze lids, which are symbolic of the vessels' ritual purpose. When assembled, the components of each vessel have levels of significance that tell stories of life experiences."

Built on their Bones: This series "recalls those who have gone before us," Lyons explains. It is, in many ways, a reminder of and homage to "individuals and civilizations that have gone before us as we build our lives upon their remains."

Hand Tools and Arms: This installation consists of a tool shed (or arsenal), and a collection of hand tools (or arms), and deals with the "fine line between construction and destruction," offers Lyons. "The human power that assembles and wields these tools or weapons is an integral part of this work, which questions the ambiguous relationship between building and destroying, reconstruction and war."

Conference: Lyons describes this work as, "a response to the anger I felt when the US bombed Iraq. [It was] a war sold to us using fear tactics, neatly packaged for our consumption with phrases like 'Shock and Awe,' and 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' ... sexy and shiny and so far removed from realty."

Natural Form Chandelier: This is among Lyons' most recent work and is "inspired by the forms I have referred to for many years," she comments. The piece is an homage to German photographer/sculptor/teacher/artist Karl Blossfeldt, known for close-up photographs of plants and living things. Of his images, Lyons says, "they have been teaching me about form for the past 3o years."

Lyons, the daughter of artists Nathan and Joan Lyons, is a Rochester native who returned to the area after living in New York City for 10 years. She holds a BFA in sculpture and glass from Alfred University and a Masters in Art Education from Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the United States; featured in the pages of The New York Times and Architectural Digest, among others; and is owned by top private collectors in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Lyons' sculptural work has been represented by Ricco/Maresca Gallery in New York City. Included among the numerous awards she has received is the prestigious Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation award in 2004, an unrestricted grant given to women artists over age 45 who are deemed to be at a critical juncture in their lives or careers. She is one of only 150 women to have received this honor.

About the Nazareth College Arts Center

For more than 40 years, the Nazareth College Arts Center has served as a venue and educational resource for students, educators, visual and performing artists, and audiences to create, study, and experience all areas of the arts. These cultural programs support the College's curriculum in music, art, and theatre arts, and provide area residents with opportunities to experience exceptional dance, children's theatre, and international entertainment.

The Nazareth College Arts Center is a nonprofit institution; attracts more than 80,000 adults and children annually; is the premier presenter of world-class dance, children's theatre, and international entertainment in Rochester; is the performance home of Rochester City Ballet and world-renowned Garth Fagan Dance, as well as the home of Rochester Children's Theatre and Bach Children's Chorus; houses the Nazareth College departments of art, music, and theatre arts, which present exceptional theatre productions, musicals, operas, recitals, and art exhibitions each year (events are open to the public); serves as a venue for auditions, art classes, music lessons, recitals, fundraisers, lectures, community theater productions, camps, workshops, and graduations; provides access to master classes, school performances, and subscription series shows for underserved youth; and presents an annual Dance Festival each July. For additional information, visit www.artscenter.naz.edu.

About the Nazareth College Department of Art

The Nazareth College Department of Art offers under-graduate programs in studio art, art education, and art history as well as graphics and illustration. The College offers graduate programs in art education and art therapy.

Nazareth has built two new state-of- the-art galleries to serve the College and the community that are a vibrant part of the Arts Center at large. For additional information, visit www.naz.edu/art.

About the Colacino Gallery

Established through the generous support of Margaret Colacino, artist and art educator, the Colacino Gallery serves as a cultural and educational resource for Nazareth students as well as the greater Rochester community. Its goal is to complement the liberal arts by fostering critical thinking, intellectual diversity, visual literacy, and aesthetic values. In addition to exhibitions generated in-house, artists are invited to submit proposals for solo or small group shows. The Colacino Gallery is located in the Art Department wing of the Arts Center complex on the second floor. For gallery hours, call the automated information line (585) 389-5073 or visit www.naz.edu/art/colacino-art-gallery.

About the Arts Center Gallery

The vision of the Arts Center Gallery is to be regionally and nationally recognized as an artistic institution that contributes to the cultural and educational life of students, faculty, and the larger community by providing a venue for high-quality, diverse artwork that advances intellectual exploration, aesthetic evaluation, and critical inquiry. Exhibitions are curated under the direction of the fine art faculty at Nazareth College by invitation. For gallery hours, call the automated information line (585) 389-5073 or visit www.naz.edu/art/arts-center-gallery.

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