The natural and abstract collide in Russell Tyler’s recent paintings. Tyler has picked up his practice of presenting seemingly dissonant styles of paintings together. Connecting the two types of paintings is how they are painted, as well as a consideration of space that can shift from the macro to the micro in the eyes of the viewer.
Russell Tyler, TGG, 2023, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 in
Tyler frequently employs a brightly-hued border around his paintings. This “framing” serves two purposes: a kind of visual enhancement or underline, and a way to connect the gestural abstract paintings to his geometric abstractions.
Russell Tyler, PSP, 2023, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 in
Russell Tyler, BX1, 2023, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 in
Tyler’s gestural abstract paintings reference both the cosmos as imagined by the artist and earthly landscapes at once. Often a cosmic depth is implied through gradual shifting background hues. A variety of expressive marks rendered in impasto oil paint seem to float on a different plane, either imploding or exploding in their space: a bouquet of forms and lines coming together or bursting apart.
Russell Tyler, Flowers, 2024, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 50 x 44 in
Russell Tyler, In Orbit, 2023, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 in
Tyler’s work invites a playful dialogue with several dueling moments from the history of abstraction: Minimalism, Concrete Art, and Expressionism. Through extended looking, the compositions reveal their sensitively rendered linear and painterly structures. Despite consisting primarily of rectangular shapes, the geometric abstractions are somehow beautifully suggestive of the natural world, rather than Modernism alone.
Russell Tyler, BX2, 2023, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 in
Russell Tyler in his studio, 2024
Russell Tyler
Tyler (b. 1981 in Summertown, TN, lives and works in Brooklyn, New York) received his BFA from Concordia University and his MFA from the Pratt Institute. His work is represented in a number of public collections, including the Kadist Art Foundation, Credit Suisse, New York Presbyterian, Carmen & Luis Bassat Foundation, Ibiza, Spain.
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