My name is Lyra McMahon (she/her). I am a Seattle-based multi-media artist and novelist. I create visual art and sound art and write upmarket fiction.
My creativity flows from my guiding light, which is that I believe someday we all become galaxies, and it will be so amazing up there that we won't even need to create anymore, because all any of us will ever be is art. But until then, being an artist is the only way I know how to try to bring a galaxy down to the earth.
I approach my art with the mindset of an archivist: searching for places to put experiences, images, words, and feelings that pass through my life that don't seem to belong anywhere else. I create art by combining small, forgettable details, the more unexpected the better, and creating something out of them.
My work is not intended to be memoir or autobiographical, but I aim to create things that are so unique and authentic to my mad and neurodivergent brain that I know no one else could have come up with that particular something. Thematically, I explore the human condition, with a habit of focusing on trans, disabled, and mad experiences, relationships, heartbreak, sex, and more.
Lyra McMahon is a pen name, blending my mom’s birth name, which reflects my Irish Catholic heritage, with Lyra, a name linked to the stars and a reference to the name of a woman who became like a second mother to me. I work as a public health researcher under my chosen name, Dielle Lundberg. More information about me and my positionality is available on my Medium page.