Tyler Vlahovich paints seemingly casual, but richly sophisticated rapid meditations on form, composition, mark-making, and color, which seek to portray if not ‘nothing,' then at the very least the painterly contours of thinking plastically and multifariously. It is for these reasons that his global practice, although obviously animated by a singular sensibility, does not immediately cohere into a single identifiable style. This is also why his work has such a strange and unpredictable relationship with beauty. Much more a byproduct of other concerns than a primary motivation, his paintings are nevertheless beautiful. The vivid, variously offbeat, playful and breathtaking pictorial events they contain surprise, perplex and delight, while their subtly textured surfaces, which are often due to a kind of encaustic technique, have a way of seducing the body as much as the eye. They are part and parcel of an idiosyncratic kind of painting that is increasingly hard to account for, and may even be inadmissible. Indeed, in today’s art world, when so much art is obliged to make perfect sense, none of what Vlahovich makes does, if it ever did. And this is precisely why it refreshes, absolutely.
- Chris Sharp
This exhibition was organized in cooperation with Lulu, Mexico City, where Vlahovich had a concurrently running show from November 21st, 2020 through January 30th, 2021.
Tyler Vlahovich (b. 1967 Tacoma, WA) is a painter who lives and works in Los Angeles. A regular exhibitor at Feature Inc., New York from 2003 until its closure in 2014, Vlahovich has also had solos, most recently, at Feuilleton, Los Angeles (2020); Farbvision, Berlin (2018); Window Project, Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles (2017); Twig Gallery, Brussels (2011); John Tevis Gallery, Paris (2006); Mary Goldman gallery (2003).