Tyza Stewart

Overview

For Tyza Stewart, the essence of his art lies in personal experience and portrayal. Tyza as a Clown, Tyza Getting Changed, Tyza Trying to be Agile — these paintings may as well be selfies, minus the narcissism because they're art.  From self-portraits to self-professions, his pieces play out questions around the human body and gender; confusing just as much as they create conversation.

Some pieces play with feminine facial features on masculine bodies, others present armpits unshaven, make-up full fledged, and faces of transparency that could belong to hims, hers or both. It's all a little anti-heteronormative, but mostly resisting our society's narrow values of what it is to look like a person.

So while pornography may portray unrealistic ideas of the human body, Tyza takes anatomic-displacement to the next level. You catch his work at Heiser Gallery from the August 5 to 30.

If you don't leave Tyza's exhibition a little more open minded, you'll at least walk away asking, "Why doesn't mine look like that?"