T. Y.

Since the early 00′s, T.Y. has been working with painting as a psychological object, one that draws complexity from a cross-current of late romanticism and commercialized detachment. Redirecting figurative imagery culled from glossy magazine ads and other pop culture sources, the artist seeks a wry self-consciousness in his own highly stylized compositions.

A classically trained figure painter, T.Y. sets his restrained brushwork to imagining a shared history with commercial art techniques. Carefully chosen palettes mute and distort the garish poses and hard lighting effects borrowed from advertising, while modernist abstraction blends with illustration in a slick, seemingly airbrushed surface.