Calista Lyon is an Australian artist based between Columbus, Ohio and Denver, Colorado. Using an expanded photographic practice, she creates installations, performances and community-engaged works that investigate the power of knowledge and memory as a form of critical resistance in our time of colonial-capitalist modernity.
Her work has been exhibited at the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA; Centre for Contemporary Photography, Australia; Sydney Museum, Australia; Luckman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Visible Records, Charlottesville, VA; La Trobe Art Institute, Australia; Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, OH; Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, UT.
Her work has been supported by the Australia Council for the Arts, Australia; Kenyon College, Gambier, OH; National Association for the Visual Arts, Australia; The Regional Art Fund, Australia; Ohio Arts Council, Columbus, OH; Ohio State University, Columbus, OH and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York, NY.
She has completed residencies and fellowships at Epicenter, Green River, UT; Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA; The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH; University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA; University of Denver, CO and the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.
In 2023, Lyon was shortlisted for the Loose Joints and Mahler & LeWitt Studios Publishing Award in Spoleto, Italy and was nominated by the Ohio Advisory Group of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC to participate in A New World: Ohio Women to Watch 2023, an exhibition touring to five venues across Ohio in 2023/24.
Lyon has previously held positions at the University of Virginia, Kenyon College and Ohio State University. She is currently the Singer Artist-in-Residence & Visiting Professor in Photography at the University of Denver, Colorado.