Calista Lyon (she/her) is an Australian-born artist and educator based in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Using a research-informed expanded photographic practice, she constructs installations, performances and community-engaged works that investigate knowledge and memory as a form of critical resistance in our time of neoliberal colonial-capitalism.
Her work has been exhibited at the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA; Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Australia; Sydney Museum, Sydney, Australia; La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo, Australia; Luckman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Visible Records, Charlottesville, VA; Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, OH and the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, UT, among others.
She 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 teaching positions at the University of Denver, Kenyon College, University of Virginia and Ohio State University. She is currently the Assistant Professor of Photography & Expanded Media at the University of Arkansas.