Mike Lyon

Mike Lyon [b. 1951] is a full time visual artist (see http://mlyon.com) in Kansas City, MO who has been deeply interested in Japanese art and culture since childhood. Lyon received his BA in Architecture and Fine Arts from the U of PA in 1973 and his BFA in painting from KC Art Institute in 1975.

Lyon is a pioneering figure in the emergent field of post-digital printmaking and graphics. [The first major study of the subject, Paul Cantanese’s and Angela Geary’s Post-Digital Printmaking: CNC, Traditional and Hybrid Techniques, was published in 2012 and devotes an entire chapter to Lyon.] Combining traditional art materials and techniques with automated machine tools and digital technology from the realm of industrial manufacturing, Lyon has developed innovative processes for making his images.

Although the path along which his visual ideas travel from conception to realization is strikingly inventive, the materials and techniques he uses to realize their final form are centuries old. Lyon’s pictures are made with ink and paper, printed from wood blocks and copper plates, or drawn with a pen. They are not output from inkjet printers, displayed on monitors, or projected on screens. It is his use of digital processes in the service of creating images wrought by analogue means that defines Lyon’s work as post-digital.

After boxing as a child, he began jiyu-jitsu training at the University of Pennsylvania in 1969. Mr. Lyon began serious study of martial arts under Tsutomu Ohshima's disciple, Jon Beltram, in 1984 (see http://kc.ska.org). In 1989, Mr. Lyon won the 2nd place medal for team kumite at SKA’s annual Nisei Week championship in Los Angeles. In 1991, he won 1st place for black belt kata at the SKA’s Midwest championship tournament in Chicago. A few weeks later, he was selected to demonstrate jiyu-ippon kumite at the 60th Anniversary of the Waseda University Karate Club in Tokyo, Japan.

Mr. Lyon founded the KCAI dojo at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1988, and the AT&T dojo in 1994. He led practices at both dojos until June of 1999 when he passed leadership along to two of his students, Sarah Oliver and Tom Peacher, who had been awarded the rank of nidan (2nd degree black belt).

Mr. Lyon has been named Shotokan Karate of America's National Member of the Year three times, in 2003, 2008, and 2016.

Mr. Tsutomu Ohshima appointed him Midwest Region Director in 1988, a position he still holds more than thirty years later.

Mr. Ohshima awarded Lyon the rank of yodan (4th degree black belt) in June of 2003. In 2018, Mr. Ohshima invited Mr. Lyon to take the examination for 5th degree black belt, the highest rank SKA awards, but did not promote him. Mr. Ohshima retired in August of 2018 after having appointed a shihan of each affiliated country organization. On August 13, 2022 a committee of three Shotokan Ohshima Karate-do country shihans, John Teramoto (USA), Norman Welch (Canada), and Eli Cohen (Israel) promoted Lyon to godan.

Mike Lyon's artwork is in these permanent museum and corporate collections:

Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO

Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS

Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO

Miriana Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Manhattan, KS

Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO

Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS

Art Museum at the University of Kentucky, Louisville, KY

McNeese State University, Lake Charles, LA

Humbert Balsan Collection, New York, NY

New York Public Library, New York, NY

Dept. of Architecture, University of Missouri, Kansas City, MO

The Collectors Fund, Kansas City, MO

Consumer Growth Partners, Kansas City, MO

Bishop-McCann, Kansas City, MO

Inergy, L.P., Kansas City, MO

Barkley, Kansas City, MO

Emprise Bank, Wichita

UMB, Kansas City,

Mike and Linda Lyon have performed with the Kansas City Civic Orchestra for more than twenty years.