Artist-IN-RESIDENCE
July 10-24, 2026
Eileen Lyons
Eileen Lyons is a South Florida–based artist whose work explores the shifting boundaries between land and water as sites of both permanence and transformation. Her first job as a cartographer for the U.S. Department of Defense in Germany continues to inform her painting today, shaping how she examines coastlines, islands, and peninsulas through aerial perspectives and cartographic language. Her work reflects the continual negotiation of natural and human-made borders, shaped by tides, erosion, storms, and human presence, using these evolving edges as metaphors for change, endurance, and the shaping of self.
Raised on the waters of Long Island, New York, Lyons later moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, where she continued to engage with water systems. She earned a BFA in painting and sculpture from Saint Mary’s College of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. After living in Germany for five years, Lyons returned to Washington, DC, where she earned an MA in Visual Arts from American University and completed her teaching certification at the University of Virginia. Painting courses at the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design in Washington, DC, developed her work further and exposed her to influences from the Washington Color School.
Lyons’ work has been in over 30 solo and/or group exhibitions in galleries, universities and non-profit cultural organizations nationally and internationally. Lyons’ work is held in multiple private and corporate collections with several permanent commissions in Washington, DC. She is the recipient of many awards and fellowships including artist residencies at Cill Rialaig Art Centre in Ireland; Studio Works at the Tides Institute & Museum of Art in Eastport, Maine; and Mackinac Island State Park in Michigan. She was recently awarded a residency at Vashon Island, off the coast of Seattle, Washington, for October/November 2026. Lyons has served as a Teaching Artist at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach.
Artist Statement
My paintings investigate the dynamic intersection of land and water, focusing on the ever-changing boundaries that define coastlines, peninsulas, and islands. These edges, formed by erosion, tides, storms, and human presence, serve as reminders of the dialogue between permanence and transformation, of earth and self.
My background in cartography continues to inform my practice. Mapping, for me, is not only about precision and authority but also about documenting personal experience. In my work, aerial perspectives and geographical markers accumulate into a visual narrative, blending earthly navigation with memory.
The interaction between enduring elements, such as rocks, and the cyclical forces of water and weather shapes my understanding of a place. I see these landscapes as sites of negotiation, formed through endurance, disruption, and renewal.
Through oils, acrylics, and inks, I experiment with surface tension and movement. Fluid underpaintings are layered with linear marks and cartographic references, while the physical manipulation of canvas and paper evokes the energy of water. This process transforms materials into dynamic expressions of terrain and time. In my painting, mapping becomes a way of navigating and remembering, tracing the shifting edges of land and water while reflecting my own obstacles, detours, growth, and the unfolding of a life.
