Lily And Sarah

Lily and Sarah brings together two of Lyon's recurring sitters in a single composition, a less common format than his solo portraits and one that calls for additional registration discipline across the joined figures. As with the rest of the series, the image originates as a photograph that Lyon separates into discrete tonal layers; each layer is routed into a cherry block by CNC, and the blocks are then printed in sequence on dampened [kozo](/glossary/kozo) [washi](/glossary/washi) using water-based pigment and a [baren](/glossary/baren). Double-figure compositions in mokuhanga have a long pedigree — from the paired beauties of Utamaro to the actor diptychs of Sharaku — and Lyon's print situates contemporary studio portraiture within that lineage while replacing the stylized line of the [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) tradition with photographic tonal range. The two figures are read as much through the negative space between them as through their individual likenesses. Within his larger body of work the print stands as a deliberate test of how the technical apparatus he has developed for single sitters scales to a relational, multi-figure subject.