Tiberius by Chadwick Tyler

 Honey Space Gallery is pleased to announce Tiberius, a solo exhibition of new photography by Chadwick Tyler. And we are pleased to relay the information here as you may have noticed already, we are in love with Chadwick's work. Nothing compares to his way to capture a model's essence and to push the limits ahead, still being in adequation with the character, even when he breaks the rules, which open doors to new perspectives. Proposing another way to look at the character through a powerful vision in which both the scene and the character interact and question the evocative meaning of everything depicted.

For his first gallery exhibition, the artist has created a series of original black & white photographic portraits depicting an array of expressive & sullenly beautiful female characters.

In Tiberius, Tyler juxtaposes the mystery and obscurity of the antiquated image with the clarity of deep emotion: transcendence, rage, ecstasy, hysteria, confusion, lethargy, exhaustion, lament, abjection, resignation, etc. The series is a sort of lexicon of unexplained broken beauty.

An intense sense of solitude underscores Tiberius. Mortality, evoked by the cinematic overhead lighting used throughout the series, seems always at the periphery; the subjects’ eyes are often turned upward, as if quite aware of their own vulnerability. The meticulous styling is suggestive of a broad range of historical social classes, but this is complicated by the disheveled appearance of even the most glamorous figures. Odd bodily contortions and nudity seem to indicate a loss of self-consciousness that further unsettles the work’s visual allusion to a more formal past.

Tiberius displays a looseness of interpretation and informality that allows for a scope of emotional representation extending beyond the work’s historical references. Raw emotional vulnerability, perhaps once seen as something to hide, here is the ultimate strength.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT
Every project I do revolves around the model, “the girl.”
For me, to work with a model is to find a connection, to develop a mode of communication & to create a relationship, in order to draw what is within her out to the surface.
My job is to enable a model to feel comfortable being vulnerable in a way that shows up on camera.
Documenting the range of a girl’s personality that emerges is everything to me; especially when it’s something she didn’t know was there.
The idea to do a gallery show was not originally mine. I didn’t begin it with a grand theme in mind, or even a specific objective.
The work as a whole is the result of a number of disparate decisions and processes that can be interpreted together, or not. Here are some:
SPACE: a 12x10 foot outdoor wall with about 6 feet of depth. We built the set in about 30 minutes with the intention of allowing the elements and the debris from the previous shoot to stay in the set for the next model.
LIGHT: always overhead, a mixture of florescent and ambient light.
MODELS: 52 of them. It was important to me to have a broad range of talent, from the most established of girls to girls to those for whom this is a first show. Most I have worked with before, others I have wanted to work with for some time. I’m privileged to have had this opportunity to bring together such a wide range of personalities.
AN INSPIRATION: My dad was a farmer. I was a farm kid. I love dirt, & imperfection.
HISTORICAL REFERENCES: Gilded Age America, Dust Bowl, the juxtaposition of the meticulous and the disheveled.
BEHIND THE SCENES: Three additional collaborators were instrumental in creating this work. Shinichi Arima did the intricate hair styling. Chiho Omae did the engaging make up. Both were heavily based on styles from the 1880’s to the 1940’s, but always with a modern aesthetic in mind. Their formal training and professional excellence allow me to maintain my informal approach. NicoleVitagliano did the immaculate styling.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION . The images that comprise the Tiberius series range in size from 3’’ x 5’’ to 6’ x 4’. Each individual image has a three-print limit, though each print is of a different size. The images are printed with UltraChrome HDR pigment based ink, on
photo rag satin 310gsm. All prints are mounted in antique frames, hand-painted by the artist.
TITLE: Tiberius. Could be a place, a clan, a harem, a community, a gloomy Roman emperor. I can’t say. I like the word.

The exhibition will take place from february 10, 2009 till march 12, 2009.
Huge thanks to Jon Banthorpe and Shane Lyons for the press release and pictures.
Keep updated with news of  Chadwick Tyler's project and what's [behind] Tiberius.