American artist Kyte Tatt represents a new wave of makers of autobiographical paintings. Through imagery drawing on subjects from personal mythology, biological forms and folklore, Tatt explores emotions and seeks to create an intriguing interplay between disorder and stability, chaos and harmony.
Tatt’s works are based on a decade of living and working on farms across the American West. The imagery takes inspiration directly from his own experience, developing freely and intuitively through expressive, gestural colors and shapes. Alongside an abstract approach and an expressive painterly style, a surprising degree of figuration emerges, allowing Tatt to convey experiences connected to the living environments. In this intermediate space, a visual language emerges in which personal experience expands into a universal reflection on life, growth, memory, and change. Bold, unexpected color combinations and expansive color fields bring out a powerful emotional intensity.
Tatt combines a variety of techniques and materials, including acrylic painting, collage, drawing and found or reclaimed materials. His paintings may be created directly on pages torn from old books or on various found and repurposed surfaces. By exploring the contrasts between materials, he creates layered and unexpected compositions. His approach is intuitive, free and experimental. The artistic expression is characterized by an immediate and spontaneous approach to painting; working instinctively, Tatt repeats and reinterprets motifs, allowing the painting process itself to guide the work forward. At the same time, the works possess a strong cultural tension, as seemingly spontaneous gestures interact with carefully considered forms and compositions. The bold interplay of animal and human figures, organic shapes and expressive, sometimes only suggestively rendered forms lends his imagery a mythical atmosphere. In Tatt’s world, humans, animals and nature merge into a single living entity.
Kyte Tatt’s works have been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions across Europe. His pieces are included in several international private collections.
