Urinals
Tyler Hays
Blue Projects presents the first solo exhibition of Tyler Hays’ work in the UK.
Spanning various outputs across furniture, painting, sculpture, textiles and ceramics, Hays is the founder and designer behind the American companies BDDW and M.Crow in which these different disciplines are seamlessly brought together. Hays’ multifaceted practice is driven by his interest in the mechanical and domestic function of utilitarian objects, a commitment to local production, and the labour and idiosyncrasy of making by hand.
Comprised of seven functional wall-mounted urinals, the works on show are sculpted by hand from stoneware clay sourced from beneath Hays’ Philadelphia studio. Each of the works are expressively rendered and finished with copper fixtures, recounting the influence of a particular regionalism and a curiosity towards industrial forms and processes. The works are treated with stains and glazes, some of which call to mind chopped wood and early log cabins, finished with hand-carved appliques that depict flora and fauna and Hays’ signature hand-painted blue-and-white vignettes of pastoral scenes and activities tied to living off the land such as hunting, trapping and shooting.
Born and raised in north-eastern Oregon, Hays is influenced by the heritage of his hometown and his experience of growing up in rural surroundings, where he developed a fascination with raw materials and learned to make everything he could using what was available from his environment. As an artist, plumber, electrician and engineer, he is involved in every part of the process of creating objects and artworks, drawing from 19th-century American life and ideas of resourcefulness and self-reliance.
His works lay bare a connection between production and product, reclaiming the possibility for these objects to genuinely engage with the history to which they allude – distancing them from the associations that the urinal traditionally holds in relation to the readymade. Hays invites the viewer to contemplate the process of object-making and our relationship to the geography around us, invoking a time of optimism and a search for a better way of life.
Tyler Hays (b. 1968) lives and works in Philadelphia, USA. He received his BFA in painting from the University of Oregon in 1994. His work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group shows, as well as public and private institutions including Art Basel Miami and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Blue Mountain School’s collaboration with Hays commenced in 2016, with the BDDW space on the first floor of Blue Mountain School entirely designed and realised together with Hays. It is the first outpost outside of his renowned New York and Milan showrooms.