Tyler Bates
Artist | Hobbyist | Traditional Art

United States

I'm currently a 23 year old artist/songwriter living outside of Nashville, TN. I work a dead end job at a cajun/jazz restaurant until I can get the money to finish art school.

I'm completely self taught in all things art. Drawing started as therapy for me through the use of moleskin journals. Because of this, poetry/writing and art has always had a deep connection with each other. This is obvious in my pen and ink work.

I tend to classify myself as a psychedelic graffiti artist, but I also like to throw buzz words like "surrealist" and "abstract expressionist" in the mix to make myself sound fancier. Most of my work is a combination of surrealist techniques (automatic writing/drawing, decalcomania, bulletism etc.) and geometry with phrases or full poetry thrown in.

My pen and ink series which used to be called "Surreal Graffiti" centers around the feelings of sensory overload in a modern society as well as the idea of being a mere mask in a sea of faces. I love to draw people, even If I'm still learning anatomy. I see faces everywhere and feel a deep connection with humanity as a whole even though at times I feel as disconnected as the Moon is to the Earth.

As for my painting, I'm still learning what I can, but I really love color theory and hope to expand my knowledge of painting techniques once I return to school. It's becoming more prevalent even though I mainly focus on pen and ink. I spend my free time sketching and studying subjects such as philosophy, human anatomy and geometry to further my skills in art since I'm not currently enrolled in school. I find self education is the most important you can invest in.

I also have a dark and psychotic past which led me to making art in the first place. This coupled with my own mental illness (bipolar type II, OCD, ADHD) has had a significant influence on my art style as well as what I portray in my pieces.

My favorite artists are: Ralph Steadman, Salvador Dali, Jackson Pollock, Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Marcel Duchamp, Andre Masson, M. C. Escher, Joan Miro, Man Ray and Picasso.

Here are a few techniques I use:

Surreal automatism (both drawing and writing)
Bulletism
Decalcomania
Entopic graphomania
Exquisite corpse
Movement of liquid down a vertical surface
Paranoiac-critical method
Sleep deprivation
Soufflage
Surautomatism

soundcloud.com/tb8s