American painter Karyn Lyons explores the longing and desolation of adolescent girlhood in her solo exhibition “Day for Night” at Stems Gallery in Paris, which opened ahead of Art Basel Paris. The show features paintings of an adolescent girl in affluent yet lonely settings, which Lyons describes as metaphoric pages from her diary. After studying journalism and working in advertising and fashion, Lyons earned a post-baccalaureate degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 2003, but kept her work private for nearly two decades until a creative breakthrough during the pandemic led her to explore her own adolescence more psychologically.
Lyons’s work taps into a contemporary cultural focus on girlhood and self-discovery that is increasingly prominent across the arts. Her trajectory—from a traditional career path to a late-blooming artistic practice—reflects broader shifts in how artists navigate personal expression and commercial pressures. The exhibition’s timing alongside Art Basel Paris positions Lyons within the international art market’s growing interest in emerging painters who mine autobiographical and psychological themes.