Tyler Young is a Portland based artist that received his BA in ceramics and jewelry and a minor in philosophy from San Diego State University in 2021. While studying for his undergrad and exploring different mediums, Tyler became increasingly aware of how different art disciplines viewed artwork and was bothered by their divergent opinions in evaluating artwork. As a result Tyler’s artwork takes an interdisciplinary approach combining different art practices, like fine art painting and craft, in order to deconstruct hierarchies placed in the art world.
Tyler Young
he/him
"For most of my life, I have struggled with expressing my identity since growing up, a majority of my interests, including my sexual interests, differentiated from societal norms. As a result, my recent work has centered around utilizing the refinement within jewelry and gestural painting as modes to validate aspects of my identity that I previously viewed as inappropriate.
“Prince Albert and their associate” is a monument that expresses my happiness and struggles in overcoming body shaming and shaming around sexual urges. The initial contempt towards sex has caused me to view genitalia as grotesque appendages. However, comically enlarging this phallic object and placing a ring at the tip to allow this piece to function as a ring, allows me to acknowledge the weight that these sexual shaming have had on my life while also embracing how much fulfillment body positivity has brought."
“Queerphoria is a particular level of comfort that I have felt being myself in an unadulterated form and the kind of happiness I have felt from this kind of comfort. Granted this kind of expression originated from a sexual freedom that allowed me to express my interests freely without regards to any societal pressures that are present, however, this feeling has transcended and inspired so many other aspects of my life. It has caused a critical reexamination of the way I live, which made me want to pursue my own interests in contrast to societal expectations of how to live.
Overall, queerphobia is indicative of the general freedom to acknowledge what given societal entities I want to be inspired by and affiliate with.”
What does [queerphoria] mean to you? This can be something felt, experienced, or made.
Prince Albert and their associate (model image), wood, copper, brass, string, paper, tape, and acrylic paints 23" x 9" x 4", 2022
“Queerness has only recently inspired my material choices and the way how I decorate the work I make. I find that queer Tik Tok is something that dominates my social media feed and the trends towards thrifting in queer culture has really changed the way how I look at my found object/assemblage way of making and collecting art. I previously found object sculpting as this transformative process to elevate a banal object’s value to validate its existence. However, as I connected more with this particular niche of queer culture, I wanted to view my work and the materials I utilize as honoring the materiality of object inherently.”
What does being queer mean to you in relation to your material choices? Is it something you consider?
Is the work queer because the maker is queer, or is it queer because the subject matter is queer?
“I think both ideas are true and equally valid. For a majority of my art making career, I have been deeply inspired by either abstract expressionists or post modern/assemblage artwork. In my personal experience, these genres have felt somewhat divorced from queer culture since a majority of the artists that led these movements have been depicted in art history books as cis white men. Having been out as queer for the last couple of years, it feels difficult to place myself within a context of art since assemblage art, which I appreciate aesthetically and theoretically, is led by cis white men; and since depictions of queer artists generally make work centered around queer identity, which my work is more focused around formal investigations in art.
I eventually learned to try to separate myself from certain labels that others use to categorize the art world into discrete genres. Regardless, I find that the work I make is queer because I, a queer person, made the work. As much as art is visual experience, the context of how the work is made and who made the work is instrumental in the way the work exists and how people talk about how it exists.”
“I think my studio practice has always aligned with my personal identity. For a majority of my life, I considered myself an eclectic person finding most of my enjoyment collecting things and information. Especially going to an interdisciplinary school where I got to focus on multiple art and craft disciplines, I found that being able to try all of these different art forms is very conducive to my desire to collect things.
My recent work has been these attempts to recollect the different disciplines I learned throughout art school (painting, found object sculpture, jewelry, woodworking) and regurgitate it in these abstract painterly/craft objects.”
What role does your studio practice play in your identity- if at all?
Prince Albert and their associate, wood, copper, brass, string, paper, tape, and acrylic paints, 23" x 9" x 4", 2022
“My recent work considers the relationship between the viewer and art objects. Initially, this relationship focused on the relationship between people within a gallery environment interacting with fine art objects, like a painting. I was fascinated by this interaction since I could use affordances within the context of jewelry to lure people to touch a painting, which is typically frowned upon. In some ways, I wanted people to be more comfortable in gallery environments rather than be immediately intimidated by a random object that people assume to have such a high value.
In terms of queerness, I thought creating queer imagery that can be interacted with would help my previous struggles with feeling comfortable with being queer. Touching and physically interacting with things has always been a way for me to explore and be comfortable in the world. Therefore, being able to create some craft object with queer imagery and being able to physically adorn it as a jewelry object have felt like baby steps in being more comfortable with myself”.
When creating your work, do you consider the relationship your object has with the viewer?
We've asked you a lot of our questions... What is one thing you would like to share?
“A lot of my work is formally centered by my initial love for painting. I find that whatever new craft or artistic discipline I embark on centers around my desire to imbue that medium with the abstract expressionist kind of mark making that resonates with my personal identity.”