Grant Recipients Grants to Artists Visual Arts 2004

Wade Guyton

A black and white portrait of Wade Guyton standing against a light background. He has curly shoulder-length hair and wears a buttoned black shirt.
Image courtesy of Wade Guyton Studio.
  • 2004 Grants to Artists
  • Visual Arts
  • Visual Artist
  • Born Hammond, IN, 1972
  • Lives in New York, NY
  •  
  • Additional Information
  • petzel.com/artists/wade-guyton

Without the support of the Foundation at this critical time, I'm not sure how my work would have progressed—certainly not as rapidly or freely.

- Wade Guyton, March 21, 2006

Artist Statement

Recently I've been using Epson inkjet printers and flatbed scanners as tools to make works that act like drawings, paintings, even sculptures. I spend a lot of time with books and so logically I've ended up using pages from books as material—pages torn from books and fed through an inkjet printer. I've been using a very pared down vocabulary of simple shapes and letters drawn or typed in Microsoft Word, then printed on top of these pages from catalogues, magazines, posters—and even blank canvas. The resulting images aren't exactly what the machines are designed for—slick digital photographs. There is often a struggle between the printer and my material—and the traces of this are left on the surface—snags, drips, streaks, mis-registrations, blurs.

- 2006

Biography

Wade Guyton uses common digital technologies as studio tools to explore relationships among viewers, images, and artworks. He frequently uses inkjet printing to create paintings and drawings that include intentional errors. He creates work under the moniker Guyton\Walker with Kelley Walker. Guyton is also a member of the collaborative Continuous Project with Bettina Funcke, Joseph Logan, and Seth Price.

The funds from Guyton's 2004 Grants to Artists award allowed him to experiment more freely with expensive materials such as rolls of primed linen and ink at a scale and cost that previously would not have been possible. He credits this to having fundamentally changed the direction of his work. The following year, Guyton was featured in MoMA PS1's Greater New York exhibition.

Since receiving his 2004 FCPA grant, Guyton's work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art; Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria; Kunsthalle Zürich; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Portikus, Frankfurt; the Kunstverein in Hamburg; Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris; Petzel Gallery, New York; and La Salle de Bains, Lyon; among others.

Subsequent to his 2004 Grants to Artists award, Guyton's work has also been featured in the 2004 Whitney Biennial, the 2007 Biennale de Lyon, the 2013 Carnegie International, and the 2013 Venice Biennale; as well as group exhibitions at venues including the Kunsthalle Zürich; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Hammer Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles; and The Museum of Modern Art.

Guyton's work is now held in the permanent collections of major institutions, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Kunstmuseum Basel, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and The Museum of Modern Art.

He received a B.A. from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 1995 and pursued graduate studies at Hunter College, where he studied with sculptor Robert Morris.

Two inkjet prints hung on a white wall side by side. The left one depicts multiple fruit plants with a white circle layered on top of the image on the upper right corner. The right one depicts wrinkled papers with texts and images digitally collaged to a white background. Two black circles are at the upper right corner with one of them cut off by the edge of the print.
(Left to right) FCPA-supported Untitled, 2005, Epson UltraChrome inkjet on linen, 51” x 35.875” and FCPA-supported Untitled , 2005, Epson UltraChrome inkjet on linen, 52” x 36.” Image courtesy of the artist and Petzel, New York.
An inkjet print of a red and blue abstract form shaped like a four-leaf clover that is placed within a diamond shaped black outline. Multiple black semi and full circles with drip marks are layered on top of the image.
FCPA-supported Untitled, 2005, Epson UltraChrome inkjet on linen, 60" x 38.25" x 1.375." Image courtesy of the artist and Petzel, New York.
An inkjet print of a red and blue abstract form shaped like a four-leaf clover that is placed within a diamond shaped black outline. Multiple black semi and full circles with drip marks are layered on top of the image.
Untitled, 2011, Epson UltraChrome inkjet on linen, 84” x 69.” Image courtesy of the artist and Petzel, New York.
An inkjet print of X-shaped abstract forms composed of black horizontal lines in varied sizes. They are either cut off in the middle or overlap one another.
Untitled, 2001, Epson UltraChrome inkjet on linen, 84” x 69.” Image courtesy of the artist and Petzel, New York.
An inkjet print of X-shaped abstract forms composed of black horizontal lines in varied sizes. They are either cut off in the middle or overlap one another.
Untitled, 2008, Epson UltraChrome inkjet on linen, 84” x 69.” Image courtesy of the artist and Petzel, New York.