Well before I met Tyler Thomas or could put a name to his work, I saw his faces all over town. Each uniquely their own, but all connected like a rogues’ gallery or freaky family tree.
Prior to moving to Richmond, I would drive down from D.C. and later Baltimore, along a certain interstate I refuse to dignify by name, to visit friends or see a local punk show. During those earliest visits in the first part of the century, I’d wend my way through the Fan, clocking the Victorian houses nestled along shady streets and the repetition of illustrated faces I started to recognize, slapped on all manner of streetside surfaces. Not the same face, mind you, but all sharing a twisted resemblance, warped and askew.
It became apparent they shared the same DNA, the same point of origin.
“If you’ve lived in Richmond for long enough, well since 03’, it’s very possible you’ve seen my work before in some capacity,” Thomas says. “Stuff I’ve put around town on light poles, street signs, and maybe even a few Style Weekly newspaper boxes.”
Richmond is richer for its street art and murals that commingle to reflect and blend with the larger cityscape and celebrate our communities. This artist’s earliest work is no exception, often repurposed from refuse and other unlikely, underutilized materials put to use in his visual storytelling.
“I lived in the Oregon Hill neighborhood on the 600 block of Laurel Street, coincidentally in the same house and room as [artist] Ed Trask, who occupied the spot back in the early ‘90s,” Thomas says. “At that time in my life, not making much money, I would gather materials to paint on from around the neighborhood alleyways and the VCU Painting and Printmaking building’s dumpster, as well as cheap stuff from local thrift shops.”
These materials allowed for Thomas to create a higher volume of work and act as a springboard for the progression his compositional methods would take in the future.
He explains: “I worked at 821 Café and would collect the handwritten food order tickets at the end of every day and take them home, and draw my faces on them, and then collage those onto paintings.” This evolution from individual drawings into larger, pastiche pieces utilizing mixed media brought about a shift in where you were likely to find Thomas’s work displayed; from smaller stickers, wherever, to mounted or framed work in gallery spaces or the homes of collectors—with many friends and neighbors among them.
Later, in the furthest extension of Thomas’s homegrown reach, you could find his designs on grocery store shelves, where his work dressed many a bottle of beer for Hardywood Park Craft Brewery. In all, Thomas designed 16 labels for the brewery, many becoming highly sought after and even collectable—who’s holding a 2015 Gingerbread Stout variant bottle of Trickery or Ruse?—less for their treacle contents than his imagery. These labels are among his best work, trading on his inimitable style: misfit and surreal, fun and chimeric. (Full disclosure: Thomas and I were co-workers at said brewery.)
Last year, right before the holidays, disaster struck when Thomas’s house flooded due to a backed-up plumbing line. Wastewater spewed, covering 90% of the floorspace. It was a major setback for him, both as a first-time homeowner, and as an artist who long worked in makeshift studios from the comfort of home. Additionally, he’d amassed a living body of work consisting of finished pieces in addition to materials be they found objects, sketches or other snippets he would constantly source or produce to ultimately repurpose.
“It ruined hundreds of pieces of my work, stuff from my early 20s,” Thomas says. “I salvaged as much as I could, but a good handful of stuff I had to throw out.”
Even more disruptive and damaging to his day-to-day existence was being displaced from his home for over six months before it was inhabitable again. In the meantime, he was put up in a hotel downtown and tried to make the most of a less-than-ideal situation.
“It was pretty stressful,” Thomas recalls. “But I set up a space in the hotel room where I could make a little bit of a mess and try to make as many paintings as I could, which turned out to be about three.”
Less productive than he was accustomed to being under normal circumstances, Thomas had to adapt his creative process to an environment at odds with it, while sinking time into dealing with insurance adjusters and contractors.
“I really didn’t accomplish a lot of work in that time. I would mostly stay at my partner’s spot, who was very supportive, and go to the hotel to work,” Thomas says. “I’d have to ask the staff not to clean my room or move my projects.” Ever the optimist, he adds, “I got free breakfast when I stayed there.” He made it work.
Back home, Thomas was relieved to return to his creative pursuit with renewed energy and vigor. “Working on my art has always been my escape,” he says. “It’s my little world spilling out on paper.”
In the aftermath of the flood, anxieties from the experience linger and have reshaped his perspective on the importance of documenting his work. Normally, Thomas views a retrospective with a healthy dose of skepticism, likening it to pulling a “Rocketman,” a reference to the Elton John biopic produced by none other than Sir Elton John.
During the pandemic, Thomas’s focus shifted from accumulating work to show and sell to mailing it all over the world, to anyone who asked, for the price of postage. Now, once again, the artist is inspired to bring together his work for a show in the coming year called, “I MOVED HERE IN ‘03”; inspired by his frequent and casual use of the phrase. If nothing else it’s a statement, coming in an election year, and encapsulates his career before the flood. As of press time, he’s on the hunt for exactly where it’ll be held, but knows precisely how he wants it to come to fruition.
In a play on the concept of a group show, Thomas is asking owners of his work throughout the city to share them, on a temporary basis, for the career-spanning retrospective. He hopes this unique opportunity to document individual pieces will constitute a larger experience of reassembling them for posterity, which will be documented for a future printed project.
“I’m telling the story of my 20 years in this city,” he says. “With the help of my outstanding community of family, friends and fellow artists—folks who’ve helped support my passion by collecting my work over the years, I think we’d be able to accomplish that.” He adds with a grin, “a reunion of sorts.”
The concept works so well because, just as Thomas’s images overlap to form a constellation that only he could design, so do the members of the community who have taken pieces of his overarching story into their homes over the years, like some sort of Tyler Thomas Optimus Prime.
Participants will be treated to an exclusive opening reception for their involvement. Prior to the show, contributions will be gathered at Lineage’s new gallery space—formerly home to Studio Two Three— in Scott’s Addition. After the show runs, individual pieces will be returned to their owners, exalted by renewed context.
Interested parties can learn more or get involved here: tylerthomasartcollection@gmail.com.
