Inspired by hardships endured while in the foster care system, Tyanna Buie was fortunate to find her voice, creative vision, and a connection with the outside world through the re-making of images extracted from photographs. Photo-based images, family memorabilia, and documents sourced from family members allow the artist to re-visit and revive previous impressions from past events. Through a non-specific order of occurrence and a theatrical Illusion of reality, the images begin to manifest into exaggerated accounts that are inconsistent from one event to another. The use of traditional narrative and non-narrative aspects of storytelling is prevalent throughout her work, which allows her to challenge her family’s past, and to re-imagine the future through fragmentation.
Consisting of repetition, dissemination, and the building of images, combined with methods such as, painting, drawing, collage, and screen-printing in a non-traditional manner on paper, the pieces exist as singular pieces and large-scale site-specific installations. Drawing on her interest in narrative and shared knowledge, as well as her experience as an educator, Tyanna Buie’s work has also shifted to include a focus on creating platforms for other artists and the open exchange of ideas in the art world. More recently, Buie’s artistic research explores the use of “self-portraits,” combined with the use of technology, images and texts solely derived from mass-media, while referencing pop-culture, identity politics, appropriation, social movements, politics, and authorship.
About the artist:
A Chicago, IL and Milwaukee, WI native, Tyanna Buie was born the youngest of four siblings on the city’s south side. By the age of four, Buie and her siblings were placed in the foster care system where they were temporarily housed, moving from one home to another throughout Illinois and Wisconsin. Buie’s life and work have been highly influenced by this experience. Early on she was guided toward the art-making process as an outlet for self-expression and to cope with a challenging environment. In the midst of this chaos, Buie was free to create, and this gave her a sense of release and enjoyment to find her voice, her creative vision and a connection with the outside world. Through the memory of these childhood experiences aided by a few family photos from her aunt, Buie has the ability to reclaim and rewrite her own past in her work; to not just focus on the hardships, but to highlight the celebrations.
Buie believes in maintaining a connection to the community around her by hosting printmaking workshops and demonstrations and participating in Healthy Neighborhood Initiatives through the production of public art created for underserved neighborhoods and communities in Milwaukee, and Madison, WI.
Tyanna Buie received a BA from Western Illinois University, and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has been a visiting artist lecturer in Tennessee, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Rhode Island, and Arizona while continuing to exhibit her works in numerous juried, group and solo exhibitions throughout the country. In 2012, Buie received an emerging artist Mary L. Nohl Fellowship and is the recipient of the 2015 Love of Humanity Award from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, and the prestigious 2015 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant. Tyanna Buie is currently living in Detroit, MI where she is Assistant Professor/Section Chair of Printmaking at the College for Creative Studies. She is a 2019 Kresge Fellow in Visual Arts and 2019-20 Grant Wood Fellow in Printmaking.