Tay Butler.

BIO. (view CV here)

AVAILABLE WORKS. (view here)

Tay Butler is a multi-disciplinary visual artist based in Houston, TX. He received his BFA in Photography and Digital Media from the University of Houston and completed his Photography MFA at the University of Arkansas. After retiring from the US Army and abandoning a middle-class engineering career to search for purpose, Tay reignited a rich appreciation for Black history and a deep obsession with the Black archive. Through collage, photography, drawing, video, sound, performance and large-scale installation, Tay utilizes past histories and imagery to create new understandings of the present while imagining a brighter future. 

Tay's solo exhibitions and installations include A Friendly Game of Basketball, Lawndale Art Center, Houston, The Triangle, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, RE.Migrant I & II at Project Row Houses, Houston, TX and We Are Still Searching at the Louise J. Moran Fine Arts Courtyard, Houston TX. His work has been featured in group showings for Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, ArtPace, San Antonio, TX and the landmark exhibition Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage for Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN. He has collaborated with the Houston Rockets, Coca-Cola, amongst many others. His awards include the Individual Artist Fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council, the Idea Fund grant from Diverse Works, and First Prize in the 2019 Citywide African-American Artists Exhibition at TSU. He currently teaches Art & Design at San Jacinto College, and has also led over 70 public and private workshops for many institutions from Crystal Bridges Museum, Arkansas to The Center for Fine Art Photography, Colorado.