I paint quiet, moody-but-hopeful landscapes and animal portraits.
Some of Tyler’s earliest memories involve exploration of colors and their relationships to the world. He formed a strong commitment to art from an early age, and upon graduating from high school, moved to Utah to formally pursue the study of art in a university setting. During the course of his university studies, he emphasized drawing and painting, printmaking, and ceramics. He graduated from the University of Utah with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree in 2000.
Tyler gives much attention to the materials used to create his works—particularly in using materials that are not often used together and are unconventional in the creation of gallery pieces. For example, he often uses roofing tar because of its unusually strong, appealing, translucent color. He uses oil and water based paints interchangeably, and he sprays or pools different solvents. In using these materials, Tyler is careful to preserve much of the spontaneity of the materials’ natural interactions with each other, which show up in the finished pieces as bleeding edges on shapes, dissolved areas, and beaded forms. As he piles many of these meticulously constructed coats, the works become thickly layered with translucent “paints”. He often moves from intensely colored under-paintings toward his more characteristic limited color pallet, leaving veiled reminiscences of the previous vibrancy. The results are stark and raw pieces with intricately textured surfaces.
