“Cyan Dee is an alter ego of Machiko Edmondson: Another version of herself and another way of painting. She calls these little works ‘impersonators’. It’s a parallel practice of portraiture once removed, as if there were some kind of stand-in, where resemblance is uncannily familiar but never quite what—or who—it seems.”
Andrew Renton (Professor of Curating at Goldsmiths University of London, ex director of Marlborough Contemporary)

"Cyan Dee's A4-sized portraits of favourite pop musicians work deliberately within the humble realm of fan art, but elevate this form to a dazzling level. Painted in oils, with rare exceptions on the semi-opaque surface of mylar, to allow the white card behind them to exaggerate their luminosity, each is a declaration of love to a creative spirit who has impacted her life. Having declared her artistic intentions as a student at
Goldsmiths in 1995 with her MFA degree show devoted to monumental portraits of her favourite musician, the great Nick Cave, and then moved on to her signature close-up portraits on an equally grand scale. The artist, also known as Machiko Edmondson, continues to focus on the often other-worldly humanity of her chosen subjects. These recent works on a much more intimate scale bring the viewer into direct confrontation with her (and our) heroes, depicted more or less life-sized with intensity and brilliance.
Working from found photographs that are available to anyone is a risky venture, especially when the photos are of people as famous and the object of as much adulation as David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Brett Anderson, Marianne Faithfull, or Rowland S. Howard. Elizabeth Peyton is one of the rare painters who has successfully worked within this sphere at a level of great sophistication. All over the world, teenagers will have been attempting such portraits for decades with very mixed results. But Cyan transforms each image into a painterly rendition that is stamped indelibly with her bravura technique and her fascination with hair and piercing eyes as signifiers of personality. Her passion for the music shines through.”
Marco Livingstone (art historian, writer, and curator)