Natalie Tyler

Natalie Tyler’s artwork theme is the investigation of life cycles and time dimension in nature and human life. Tyler simultaneously works on several bodies of work that incorporate these ideas, the various concepts of home being often the core of her art. Nature is where she finds much of her inspiration for creating work that symbolizes the depth of the human experience. Casting bronze as a way to immortalize moments in time, she works in layers, much like a novel, to tell a visual story.

Her installations often investigate decay and relics that narrate a story of the past. Several of her artworks tell of the life cycle related to a dwelling: birth, abandonment, reclaiming of nature, and regeneration, symbolizing our human experience on earth.
Investigating decrepit sheds, houses, and barns from small towns that represent the communities of the past is for her a way to capture the whispering of the lives that have lived within them.
Still standing and not currently used, they are intriguing structures now even more so than when they were first built. The buildings are uninhabitable, but the fact they are left standing and have become part of the counties beautiful landscape, shows the appreciation that the communities have for preserving their past history. The structures after being weather torn, burned, or collapsed, now dictate their history by what is left.
Her sculptures of three dilapidated houses from different towns, captured in bronze, have become now relics of our history preserved in their current state.

In her “Nests” installation, the bronze bird nests enfold and support the eggs during their time of incubation. The eggs also nurture and support the embryos inside them. Birds are very spiritual creatures, the closest ones to heaven. When the birds are still forming, not yet out of their shell and able to stand or fly on their own, they are very fragile. They represent the potential of flight, reaching of the high elevation. The nest, the home that the parent bird has created is very important to the future sustainability of these forming creatures.
In the large bronze “Yellow Jacket Nest”, Tyler chooses to represent how yellow jackets create their nest for reproduction, unlike honeybees. The larva are made from translucent polyurethane rubber that allows light to pass through them symbolizing energy, change and the manifestation going on inside. The nest has that held many forming yellow jackets, now starting to decay, can still bear life.

Below is a short essay from the artist:

Sunflowers – Girasoli

Several years ago, when I was fresh off the plane in Italy, I took a train from Rome to Bologna. After 12 hours of traveling from the United States, no sleep, and a lot of confusion, I found myself staring out the window on a very crowded train. Just outside of Rome, near Tuscany, I was mesmerized by the endless acres of sunflowers. I had just missed them in all their glory. For most, their heads were down; stems were tall, thin, and barely standing. I found the flowers in this decaying state so intriguing; much more so than when they were healthier. I began to think about the thin line that exists between what is beautiful and what is grotesque. How could something so close to death be so enrapturing?

After I heard of four fashion models that had died because of poor nutrition, I began to see a connection between these dying sunflowers and our contemporary view of ideal beauty. The tall, thin, high cheekbones, doe-eyed women, are today’s deities of beauty. They stand as role models, setting the trends, and influencing our perspectives: in this case, a beauty attainable through starvation.

The sunflowers are cast in bronze. They stand four to seven feet tall on roots. The roots are bare, taken out of soil, deprived of their nutrients. Each stem has a female body sculpted onto it. Each figure is a pose taken from various fashion model photographs. The figures disappear when standing at a distance from the grove. The heads of the flowers droop down, some missing seeds. Without nutrients the ovulation stops…fertility stops. .

Born in Encinitas, California, Natalie Tyler received her Bachelor’s Art with an emphasis in Sculpture from University of California in Santa Cruz in 1997. She studied fine art at the Academy of Fine Art in Bologna, Italy, and art history at the DAMS Program of the University of Bologna. She returned to Italy in 1999 as intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. In 2000, she attended the Johnson Atelier Technical Institute for Sculpture in New Jersey, where she refined sculpture and technical bronze casting skills. Recipient of the Johnson Atelier Incentive Award in 2000, she graduated with her Master’s of Fine Art from California College of Art in San Francisco in 2002, and was awarded with the Dorothy and George Saxe Scholarship. She was the art curator of the Verging On exhibition at the Nexus Gallery in Berkeley, California. She also worked as art curator for an investment firm in San Francisco in 2003. She exhibited her work in the Bay Area and Sacramento from 2000 to 2004.
In New York City, Natalie worked as a Freelance Sculptor for internationally known sculptor Boaz Vaadia from 2005 to 2006. Accepted as an artist in residence for three consecutive years at the Mendocino Art Center in Mendocino, California, in 2006, she sculpted and showed her works in several exhibitions.
In 2008, her sculptures and décor were prominent in the set of the “1937” short-movie featured at the Venice Film Festival. In October of 2008, Natalie attended the Vermont Studio Center on a full fellowship artist residency. She currently lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.