Faith and the Black experience: the art of Tyler Ballon
American artist Tyler Ballon’s larger-than-life oil paintings fuse his Catholic upbringing with his experience of life as a Black man. The intimacy and humanity he brings to each canvas earned him a solo exhibition at Deitch Gallery in New York earlier this year. Here, renowned painter Amy Sherald shares why he is one to watch.
“I first met Tyler Ballon when he was a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2018, where I was serving as visiting chair. His talent was undeniable and he was easily among the most powerful I’ve seen in a college academic setting. Even then, at age 22, there was a quiet intensity about him: focused, driven, and unwavering in his desire to become a painter. Tyler wasn’t dabbling, he was devoted. It was an ambition that his parents (both pastors) and grandmother, a community activist and school lunch lady, keenly supported. They instilled in him a respect for others, regardless of their circumstances, and a sense of service and purpose.
“After graduation, Tyler returned home and turned his focus to the people in his community, creating large-scale figurative works of his peers: young Black African American men, adolescent athletes on the football field, in marching bands – heroic, resilient and forging their own paths.
TYLER BALLON, How It Feels to Be Free, 2021
“When I visited [New York gallery] Jeffrey Deitch this past spring to see Tyler’s solo exhibition “Flying High,” I was struck by the ambition and power of the work. The show presented a body of work that sits at the intersection of sports, identity and history. These works celebrate the resilience of young African Americans who strive for better futures using the resources available to them, fighting against the structural challenges of inner-city life. At the same time, the work pushes back against the limiting notion that success for people of color must come solely through athletics or entertainment.“
In one series, he depicts the football team of Abraham Lincoln High School in Jersey City, New Jersey, with symbolic purpose – an homage to the Black Civil War veterans who fought in pursuit of freedom and full citizenship. In another, he portrays the marching band of Malcom X Shabazz High School in recognition of their achievement in performance, their New Jersey roots, and their namesake, Malcom X, a revolutionary voice whose vision and ideology helped shape the course of Black history and culture.
TYLER BALLON, Milestones, 2021
“Through these bold, exhilarating paintings, rendered by his mastery of classical painting techniques, Tyler immortalises young Black men and women while excavating African American history and honoring his cultural inheritance. He does so with a sense of monumentality, with acuity, compassion and nuance, immediately drawing viewers into the heart of these communities.“
Tyler’s visual language draws from biblical allegory, personal memory, and the contemporary Black experience, rendered with emotional depth and precision that feels both intimate and transcendent. Tyler isn’t just painting figures, he’s painting his inheritance as a young Black man, and his own evolving identity as a husband and a father through each figure he renders. Being an artist is hard. Being a Black American artist comes with its own unique challenges. Yet Tyler embraces the privilege of creating work that not only lives in the world but carries power with it.”
TYLER BALLON, Bear Arms/Second Amendment, 2025
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