Valton Tyler
Tickle Me
1970

About the Item

In The New York Times Arts in America column, Edward M. Gomez writes of Valton Tyler, "visionary seems the right word for describing his vivid, unusual and technically refined paintings, prints and drawings, whose style defies convenient labels. Abstract, surreal, cartoonish, sci-fi fantastic, metaphysical, apocalyptic-Baroque - all of these fit but also fall short of fully describing his art." (The Living Arts, June 13, 2000, p. B2) Valton Tyler was born in 1944 in Texas, where "the industrial world of oil refineries made a long-lasting impression on Valton as a very young child living in Texas City. He was three years old when the terrible explosion occurred there and can remember the terrifying confusion and 'the beautiful red sky and objects flying everywhere in the air.'" (Reynolds, p. 25) While growing up in Texas City, Valton's father worked in auto repair, and was known for his skill in mixing colors for paint jobs. After leaving Texas City, Valton made his way to Dallas, where he briefly enrolled at the Dallas Art Institute, but found it to be too social and commercial for his taste. After Valton's work was introduced to Donald Vogel (founder of Valley House Gallery), "Vogel arranged for Tyler to use the printmaking facilities in the art department of the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where the young artist essentially taught himself several demanding printmaking techniques. 'It was remarkable,' Vogel says. 'Not only did he learn complicated etching methods, but he was able to express himself powerfully in whatever medium he explored.' Vogel became the publisher of Tyler's prints. Among them, the artist made editions of some 50 different images whose sometimes stringy abstract forms and more solid, architecturally arresting elements became the precursors of his later, mature style." (Gomez, Raw Vision #35, p. 36) "Tickle Me" is plate number 9, and is reproduced in "The First Fifty Prints: Valton Tyler" with text by Rebecca Reynolds, published for Valley House Gallery by Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, Texas, 1972. In “The First Fifty Prints,” Reynolds provides the following quote from the artist: “My forms communicate with one another. They are having fun together, and I feel free and happy when I am making them, but I have to leave them and let them go their way, and I go mine.” Reynolds writes, ““Tickle Me” is one of the delightful examples of Valton’s freedom of expression with his subject matter and medium. His strange little creatures of plant and animal-like forms seated on their pedestals invite us into their soft gray world. A form suggesting an eggplant with octopus tentacles seems to vibrate with contagious laughter as he shakes his wild coiffure in response to his companions. This humorous light mood is evoked in every aspect of the artist’s design. It is felt in the delicacy of the line as it twists and curves leading the eye upward to the apparently weightless volumes suspended upon their spindly stems and bases and in the rich silver-grays and blacks the artist has so beautifully achieved through his use of soft ground and line etching. These tonalities create a softness, a glow, and a sparkle that emanate from the forms themselves and radiate in the atmosphere that envelops them. Gaiety also spreads through the composition by means of the seeds and particles the figures have shaken off their bodies. They tease and threaten to tickle one another, or they merely float into the air like bubbles of laughter. These seedlings are repeatedly used by the artist throughout his work. Functionally, they give an added movement to the visual relationships between forms, and symbolically they suggest a continual activity of reproduction. The forms seem to say they are now independent of their creator and mysteriously capable of rebelling against the limitations of a two-dimensional design in order to carry out their own lives in their own world.” (Reynolds, p. 56) Paper size: 15 1/8 x 12 1/4 inches Edition: 5 Artists Proofs Imp. 50 Signed Prints Imp. Bibliography: Edward M. Gomez, "Futuristic Forms Frolic Under Eerie Texan Skies," The New York Times, June 13, 2000, page B2. Edward M. Gomez, "Valton Tyler's Techno-Organic Landscapes," Raw Vision 35, Summer 2001, pages 34-39. Rebecca Reynolds, "The First Fifty Prints: Valton Tyler," published for Valley House Gallery by Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, Texas, 1972.

Creator:
Valton Tyler (1944, American)
Creation Year:
1970
Dimensions:
Height: 8.5 in (21.59 cm)Width: 6.5 in (16.51 cm)
Medium:
Paper,Etching
Movement & Style:
Modern
Period:
Late 20th Century
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Dallas, TX
Reference Number:
Seller: VT-09-021stDibs: LU2571886573
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