Wyatt Doyle

01 Mar Wyatt Doyle

Posted at 01:00h in Exhibitions, Past Exhibitions by

March 1 – 26, 2021

Opened M-F, 12-6PM or by appointment

Wyatt Doyle is a writer, designer, publisher, and photographer born in Pennsylvania. For two decades he earned a living in and on the fringes of the film and television industry in Los Angeles. A regular commuter on public transportation, years spent waiting at bus stops and riding buses introduced a range of places, personalities, and street-level perspectives to his work that the isolation of freeway travel would have ensured were bypassed. They informed his most popular fiction and his photography—photography poet and critic Bill Shute describes as “moments of junk-store epiphany, of accidental revelation, which lurk un-noticed in the most taken-for-granted parts of everyday run-down America.”

And the red death held sway over the dollar store is Wyatt’s first solo exhibition. The text that follows is an excerpt from the foreword to his monograph, Dollar Halloween, which debuted several of the images in this presentation:

“Los Angeles is a dollar store town. With significant blocs of its population composed of recent immigrants, low-income laborers, and entertainment-industry cannon fodder—all working for peanuts—dollar stores help ensure the continued survival of the working poor by offering grocery essentials at a buck apiece. If you’ve got a dollar, you’ve got a dinner…or something, anyway, until a dinner comes along.

“And where there’s a need, or even a mild desire, a dollar store stands ready to fill it, for whatever you’ve got in your pocket. Come autumn, their aisles swell with an onslaught of flimsy window decorations and off-brand Halloween tchotchkes. Most made in China, few sturdy enough to survive a single use.

“The haste, disinterest, and cynicism in the products’ manufacture are often reflected in the product. At times the low production standards and cheap molds add a layer of unintentional deformed menace to an expression, or lend an accidental resemblance to some obscure movie monster; other items, the process renders unrecognizable…. Most of it dusted with glitter, all of it junk. Handle one, it leaves paint on your fingers. Throw it away, and bits are left behind.”

— Wyatt Doyle

This is Wyatt Doyle‘s first exhibition at Gallery 30 South. Each of the images on this preview page has been watermarked to help prevent online piracy but the photographs you will receive as purchased are unobstructed 3 x 3 in. archival pigment prints on Epson luster paper, signed verso and dated by the artist. The photos are presented in 8 x 8 in. archival, acid-free mats and backing boards in a clear mylite sleeve. There are only two prints of each image available in this edition.

Call or email the gallery to be placed on the preview list or to discuss payment and delivery options.
(323)547-3227 info@gallery30south.com

About the artist

WYATT DOYLE is co-founder and ringmaster of New Texture. He launched its imprint in 2006, and edits and designs most releases. A collection of his stories illustrated by Stanley J. Zappa, STOP REQUESTED, is available from New Texture, as are his photography collections, DOLLAR HALLOWEEN, I NEED REAL TUXEDO AND A TOP HAT!, BUTY-WAVE IS NOW CLOSED FOREVER, and JORGE AMAYA DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE. A collaboration with Jimmy Angelina, THE LAST COLORING BOOK, was released in 2016, followed by THE LAST COLORING BOOK ON THE LEFT in 2017. With Robert Deis, he established The Men’s Adventure Library series of pulp fiction anthologies, which include contributions from Bruce Jay Friedman, Walter Kaylin, Robert Silverberg, Robert F. Dorr, Harlan Ellison, artists Samson Pollen, Mort Künstler, and Gil Cohen, and men’s adventure supermodel Eva Lynd.

He assisted Georgina Spelvin in the publication of her memoir, THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT, and served as editor and publisher of BLACK CRACKER by Josh Alan Friedman for his own imprint, Wyatt Doyle Books. He curates the New Texture website and Rev. Raymond Branch’s RevBranch.com. His original screenplay with Jason Cuadrado, I’M HERE FOR YOU, was filmed as DEVIL MAY CALL. He performs in the Stanley J. Zappa Quartet. A recording, THE STANLEY J. ZAPPA QUARTET PLAYS FOR THE SOCIETY OF WOMEN ENGINEERS, is forthcoming.

Show Statement:

Simple and direct are my preferences. I prefer natural or source light. I use consumer-grade, point-and-shoot cameras. I avoid manipulating images.

I like photographs that imply a narrative. I’m interested in people, places, and objects—how they intersect and interact, and the ways time and physical surroundings affect, alter, and comment. It’s a conversation, and I document that conversation.

The choice of image size for this exhibition means the photos make demands on a viewer that larger reproduction would not. The size demands focus, attention, and a more conscious engagement. Presenting photographs in these dimensions is another way of reiterating what I say in most of my work: Stop. Look closer.

And less apparent, but no less important: Listen to more Sammy Davis, Jr. records.

Click here for further reading: Bill Shute on Wyatt Doyle

Click HERE for Wyatt Doyle’s CV

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