Statement
I want to turn architecture inside out, inviting viewers into a reconstructed space that shifts the relationship between domestic interiors, architectural structures, and nature. My process begins with recording my surroundings through video and still photography, then transforming these images in the studio through paint, printmaking, and collage. These diverse fragments come together into immersive installations that exist somewhere in between built structures and 2-dimensional representations of nature.
Reconstructing architecture through a queer lens opens space for potential and permission – creating environments that resist conventional binaries and fixed categories. While the making involves a personal conversation of understanding the world and my place within it, the spaces themselves remain open-ended, inviting viewers to shape their own experience either alone or with others, creating moments of connection between built environment, image, and lived experience.
My installations combine photographs, paintings, and video projections with architectural interventions - open walls, painted beams, and windows. I work with the relationship between my constructed architecture and the gallery space itself. Can I expand how viewers experience space? Can the building's power shift to the person inside it, inverting the power from outside to within? Recently, I've introduced textiles, chairs, and floor pieces that allow these spaces to be inhabited differently, challenging the relationship between 2D and 3D space. Now the viewer is invited to sit and to be, and to look at the art if and when they want to. Perhaps peripherally.
Bio
Cybele Lyle is a Los Angeles-based artist whose installation, video and 2D works explore place and identity by reconstructing her surrounding architecture, interior space and natural environment. Lyle received a bachelor of arts in environmental studies from Oberlin College, a bachelor of fine arts in printmaking from California College of Arts, and a master of fine arts in painting/combined media from Hunter College. She has participated in residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida; Recology, California; and Headlands Center for the Arts, California. Her works have been shown at institutions, including Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha; Oakland Museum of California; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; and Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa. Lyle is a recipient of the Kala Art Institute Fellowship, the Tony Smith Award from Hunter College, and the Yozo Hamaguchi Printmedia Award. Cybele currently lives in Los Angeles and is represented by Et al. Gallery in San Francisco.
Born in Pasadena, CA
Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA
2007 MFA, Hunter College, Combined Media and Painting, New York, NY
2001 BFA, California College of Arts and Crafts, Printmaking, San Francisco, CA
1995 BA, Oberlin College, Environmental Studies, Oberlin, OH
SELECTED SOLO and TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2025 Who’s mountains are you? Et al. Gallery, San Francisco, CA (forthcoming)
2024 Floating seeds make deep forms, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, AZ
2021 Dance Desert at Et al. etc Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2018 The Desert in Four Parts; Part 1: Between what came before, Et al. etc. Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2017 Are You Me or Are You a Stranger, Recology San Francisco2016 Bring Me Here, Now Take Me Away, Et al. Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Adventures in Solitude, Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA
2015 Where Have All the Flowers Gone, ATA Right Window, San Francisco, CA
Personal Space, Plug Projects, Kansas City, MO
Segments|Partitions|Intervals, Adjunct Positions, Los Angeles, CA
2014 The Moon is Slowly Rising, Et al. Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Boxed Out, SFAC Grove St. Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2013 Fictional/Familiar, Swarm Gallery, Oakland, CA
2012 2x2 Solos: Cybele Lyle, ProArts, Oakland, CA
Space, Time & Architecture w/Luca Antonucci, Royal Nonesuch Gallery, Oakland
2010 Architecture and DNA, Shemei Hall Gallery, Pasadena, CA
The Last Resort, Krowswork Gallery, Oakland, CA
2009 Untitled (Time Machine), ATA, San Francisco, CA2007 A Queer Room II, Photo Miami Installation - Galerie Poller, Miami, FL
A Queer Room, MFA Thesis Show, Hunter College, Times Square Gallery, New York, NY
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 Site Seeing, Charlotte Street Foundation, Kansas City, KS
Beyond the Union of Opposites, Upstart Modern Gallery, Sausalito, CA
2019 Built Environments, San Francisco State University Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2017 California-Pacific Triennial: Building as Ever, Orange County Museum of Art, CAEsho Funi, Gallery 16, San Francisco, CA
Sabbath, Dorothy Saxe Invitational, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
2016 Altered State: Marijuana in California, Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
My Witness is the Empty Sky, 1078 Gallery, Chico, CA
Radical Landscapes, di Rosa Art Museum, Napa, CA
2015 Real Time & Space: A Group Exhibition, Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, CA
Tzedakah, Dorothy Saxe Invitational, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
2014 Another Place, Hunter College Art Gallery, New York, NY
Para-Apparatus, Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA
Many Places at Once w/ RTS, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, SF, CA
Cookbook Dreams and Inflatable Futures, Guest Spot, Baltimore, MD
Chasm Arena, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
Producing Space, Interface Gallery, Oakland
2013 Untitled, Disjecta, Portland, OR
Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict, Et al. Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2012 I like where this is going, Queen’s Nails Gallery, San Francisco, CA
DocumentO, Krowswork Gallery, Oakland, CA
Placemakers, Bemis Center of Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE
2011 In the Common Corner of Four Rooms, Statler Waldorf Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Run-Off, MacArthur b Arthur, Oakland, CA
A Floorless Room without Walls, The Lab, San Francisco, CA
Chromatism, NOMA Gallery, San Francisco, CA
No Longer the Property of, Lost Coast Culture Machine, Fort Bragg, CA
Painting with Pictures 2, Artjail, New York, NY
2010 Mirror Made Me, Krowswork Gallery, Oakland, CA
Cynosure: New Work from East Bay Galleries, Worth Ryder Gallery, Berkeley
2009 Fractions of Sight, RoCA, West Nyack, NY
tART@AIR, AIR Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2007 Space Stories, Chashama Gallery, New York
Good Times: Crash & Play, Vespa, New York
2006 International Flipbook Festival, Reg Vardy Gallery, Sunderland, England (Traveling)
2005 What Means Free?, Chelsea Hotel, New York
MAs Select MFAs, Times Square Gallery, New York
AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES
2025 Speranza Foundation, Lincoln City Fellowship, Santa Fe, NM
2017 Recology San Francisco, Artist in Residencey, San Francisco, CA
2016 Headlands Center for the Arts, Artist in Residence, Sausalito, CA2016 SECA Finalist, Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
2013 Kala Fellowship, Berkeley, CA
2012 2x2 Solos Commission, ProArts, Oakland, CA
2012 SECA Finalist, Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
2009 Ox-Bow, Artist in Residence, Fall Fellowship, Saugatuck, MI
2008 Atlantic Center for the Arts, Artist in Residence, New Smyrna Beach, FL
2007 Tony Smith Award, Hunter College
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Bemis Center, Omaha, NE
Ellie Mae, Inc., CA
Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA
Orange County Museum of Art, Newport, CA
Recology San Francisco, CA
San Francisco General Hospital, San Francisco, CA
Stanford Hospital, Menlo Park, CA
ARTICLES, BLOGS, BOOKS & REVIEWS
2024
Lefevre, Camille. Cybele Lyle Queers Desert Landscapes Through Portals, Lean-tos, and Constructed Architectures, Southwest Contemporary, October 17, 2024
2021
Chiaverina, John. 12 Galleries That Aren’t in New York or Even Los Angeles, T Magazine
2018
Kirkland, Kelly. Cybele Lyle: Lured to the Local, Art Practical, October 30, 2018
2017Knight, Christopher. 2017 California-Pacific Triennial at OCMA: The art of building up (and tearing down), LA Times, August, 2017
Morgan, Susan. The Impermanent Architecture at California-Pacific Triennial, KCET Online, May 17, 2017University of West Florida. Cybele Lyle, Panhandler Magazine, January 2017.
2016
Cheng, Jennifer S. Cybele Lyle: Transfiguring space, Jacket2, August, 2016
Kost, Ryan. Redefining the spaces around us in multimedia, SF Chronicle, September2015
Akel, Joseph. As San Francisco Booms, So Does its Gallery Scene, New York Times T Magazine, January 8, 2015
2014Frock, Christian L. Inside The Battery’s Quest to Cultivate Art Patrons and Philanthropists, KQED, November 24, 2014
Smith, Kara Q. Place, Decoupled, Artslant, June 15, 2014Hotchkiss, Sarah, Cybele Lyle’s ‘Moon is Slowly Rising’ at Et al., KQED, June 12
2013
Bigman, Alex. Swarm Gallery's Farewell Exhibition Shows Fresh Perspectives, East Bay Express, May 22, 2013
Lutz, Leora. Several Species of Furry Animals…Grooving with a Pict..” SFAQ, May2012
Bigman, Alex. Pick: 2x2 Solos: Cybele Lyle and Wafaa Yasin, East Bay Express, Nov
Cosio, Alfonso and Monique Delaunay. SHED Projects: House Show, Oakland Art Enthusiast, August 9, 2012Haas, Maggie. Now Featuring: Cybele Lyle, Little Paper Planes, April 1, 2012
Cheng, DeWitt. Top Five Things to do Over the Next Three Days, East Bay Express, February
Villarreal, Jose. Nine artists engaged in interventionist and transformative acts exhibit at Bemis Center, Art Daily, February 20
Harwood, Cassie. Space, Time, and Architecture, East Bay Express, February
Mackler, Lauren. Public Fiction #2: The Gold Rush/Manifest Destiny Issue, February
Frock, Christian L. Royal Nonesuch Gallery Redefines Alternative with Space, Time and Architecture, KQED, January 29
Cosio, Alfonso and Monique Delaunay. Royal Nonesuch Gallery, Space, Time, and Architecture, Oakland Art Beat, January 22,
Deskins, Sally. Cybele Lyle, Artist, Les Femmes Folles, January 16Olsen, Augusta. On-Site Sights - Bemis Center Opens Seminal Installation, Shout! Weekly, January 12
Grattan, Nikki and Klea McKenna. In the Make: Cybele Lyle, In the Make.net, January
2011
Jones, Kelly. Little Paper Planes Blog, October 25
Haas, Maggie. The Take-Away: Run Off at MacArthur, The Daily Serving, October 17Echeveste, Stephanie. Art on the Ceiling -- About the Ceiling..., SFWeekly, June 28
2010
Cheng, DeWitt. Picks, East Bay Express, March 3-9
Ringer, Isabelle and Ross Todd Kerr. Emancipated Hearts See Optical Illusions, Mirrors & More, Piedmont Post, February 10Auer, Theo Konrad. The Month Ahead in Oakland Art: Mirror Made Me at Krowswork Gallery “TheOakbook.com,” February 5