Tyler Lafreniere

Launch F18 presents Tap The Rockies, a solo exhibition by Brooklyn based artist Tyler Lafreniere.

In a statement from the artist, Tyler discusses the meaning of Tap The Rockies and the larger parameters of culture, identity and personal relationships it represents:

My work delves into the contemporary masculine identity by reinterpreting this same “male” identity through cultural imagery. As members of this culture we construct our personal identities from the zeitgeist of what a contemporary man “is.” The combination of television, magazines, pornography and music, aid in this creation of a supposed “man.” Our identities are based on paralleling and defying this imagined persona. The process of constructing these identities works cyclically. Each male creates this definition personally while the culture constructs its own caricatures and generalizations; all based on these diverse realities. This larger cultural identity of “man” is then fed back to us and is absorbed into our own definition of what a man is. By appropriating the culture’s visual symbols of masculinity and reconstructing these into a new masculine identity I am mirroring this larger cyclical process.

In “Tap the Rockies,” I am pulling from conglomerated memories of spaces from my youth to transform the gallery space into an early 90’s suburban “man cave.” The “man cave” is the contemporary lower-middle class embodiment of the Italian renaissance studiolo, a room serving as a man’s retreat for private study and meditation. A small space lacking or poorly imitating the trappings of its upper class predecessors, it served as an imagined refuge from work, family and the rest of life. By reconstructing this space I am also creating a supposed male inhabitant whose presence permeates the work.

- Tyler Lafreniere

Tyler Lafreniere is a visual artist originating from Camden, ME. In 2006, Lafreniere earned his BA in Fine Art from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. During his undergraduate studies, he also concentrated on fine art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Lafreniere currently is Creative Director of Gypsé Eyes Magazine and is a freelance graphic designer with his company, Kids With Tools, which he founded in 2008. Tyler continues to make art in many different capacities in Brooklyn, where he lives and works.