About

  • Tyree Guyton is an American Neo-Expressionist artist who is a proponent of Graffiti art and Urban Environmental art. He has... Tyree Guyton is an American Neo-Expressionist artist who is a proponent of Graffiti art and Urban Environmental art. He has... Tyree Guyton is an American Neo-Expressionist artist who is a proponent of Graffiti art and Urban Environmental art. He has... Tyree Guyton is an American Neo-Expressionist artist who is a proponent of Graffiti art and Urban Environmental art. He has... Tyree Guyton is an American Neo-Expressionist artist who is a proponent of Graffiti art and Urban Environmental art. He has... Tyree Guyton is an American Neo-Expressionist artist who is a proponent of Graffiti art and Urban Environmental art. He has... Tyree Guyton is an American Neo-Expressionist artist who is a proponent of Graffiti art and Urban Environmental art. He has... Tyree Guyton is an American Neo-Expressionist artist who is a proponent of Graffiti art and Urban Environmental art. He has... Tyree Guyton is an American Neo-Expressionist artist who is a proponent of Graffiti art and Urban Environmental art. He has...

    Tyree Guyton is an American Neo-Expressionist artist who is a proponent of Graffiti art and Urban Environmental art. He has waged a personal war on urban blight on Detroit's East Side, transforming his childhood neighborhood into a living indoor/outdoor art museum. Through his art, Tyree has drawn attention to the plight of Detroit’s forgotten neighborhoods and spurred discussion and action.

     

    “When you come to the Heidelberg Project, I want you to think—really think! My art is a medicine for the community. You can’t heal the land until you heal the minds of the people,” says Tyree.  This iconic colorfully painted polka dotted neighborhood, which symbolizes our society’s diversity, has played a vital role in transforming the visual indignities of poverty and have placed an international spotlight in this particular community.  

  • Recognized as one of the most powerful art environments in the world, the HP anchors work in: Reinvention and Revitalization of Urban Spaces, Politics of Creativity, Urban Renewal and Education, Urban Ecology and Environmental Justice through Public Art.  As the Heidelberg Project celebrates its 30th anniversary, Tyree’s hope is that the community will assume a larger role in the continued evolution of the Heidelberg Project.

     

    Tyree studied at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit and in 2009 was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Art. He exhibits his work extensively throughout the United States and the world.  Tyree’s art is featured in the Detroit Institute of Arts, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Studio Museum of Harlem and many others. His work as an artist has earned him over 18 awards, locally and nationally. Tyree has also been featured in major publications, books, and television (including the Oprah Winfrey Show) and was the subject of the Emmy Award Winning Documentary, Come Unto Me, the Faces of Tyree Guyton; and more recently the subject of a book published in 2007 by WSU Press, Connecting the Dots, Tyree Guyton’s Heidelberg Project—a 2008 Michigan Notable Book.  Tyree is married and continues to live and work in the city of Detroit.

  • Philosophy

    'I strive to be a part of the solution. I see and understand how order is needed in the world... 'I strive to be a part of the solution. I see and understand how order is needed in the world... 'I strive to be a part of the solution. I see and understand how order is needed in the world...

    "I strive to be a part of the solution. I see and understand how order is needed in the world and in our individual lives. My experiences have granted me knowledge of how to create art and how to see beauty in everything that exists.

     

    Even in the smallest molecule or things in this life that we can’t see, we are all bound by this same energy, we are all bound by gravity and we breathe the same air. I can see the evolution of life in everything, in every minute second. How beautiful it is to witness this process in action.

     

    What is beyond space and can we possibly look that far into ourselves? What is art? I have been asking myself this question over and over. Is my life an art form? 

     

     I began to see and hear my own work in a new way that opened up my third eye of wisdom and my mind to see how everything is connected to this one source of energy or this divine power. I believe that it will take a lifetime for me to understand and appreciate this power.

  • Knowing this, I don’t have to ask this question anymore. The energy to create is never ending and so therefore... Knowing this, I don’t have to ask this question anymore. The energy to create is never ending and so therefore... Knowing this, I don’t have to ask this question anymore. The energy to create is never ending and so therefore...

    Knowing this, I don’t have to ask this question anymore.  The energy to create is never ending and so therefore art is!

     

    The word composition according to Webster’s Dictionary means to form by putting together; to make up from many ingredients, etc. I have come to the realization of knowing and understanding the fact that I have been called to create art that is unusual and compositional in form.

     

    I challenge so called traditional and convention.  We live in a world full of corruption from the top to the bottom, values seem to no longer exist and rules are broken everyday. For me, art is a way of expressing life. My work is a science that deals with colors, shapes, objects that brings about a rare beauty to the mind and eyes of people, a type of esthete. My art is life, life that lives on with time because the entire creation is an art form.

     

     

    I see magic in what I do as an artist. This magic helps me to understand how to create compositions of unusual taste. It’s a journey that keeps me searching to know more about life in general and my own life. The whole world is a stage and we, as humans, are playing our part—acting out our purpose."

     

    Tyree Guyton­, 2016