EDUCATION
2003 MFA (Cum Laude) New York Academy of Art, New York, NY
2003 Independent Study, The Royal Academy of Art, London, England
2001 BFA (Drawing & Painting) Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023 America has a Problem, N’Namdi Contemporary, Miami, FL
2023 Dark Matter, N' Namdi Contemporary, Detroit, MI
2022 A Different World, IBIS Contemporary, New Orleans, LA
2021 Year of the Flood: White History Month Vol I & II, N'Namdi Contemporary, Detroit, MI
2019 White History Month Vol I, Institute for Humanities, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
2018 American Gods, N'Namdi Contemporary, Detroit, MI
2013 Identity, N'Namdi Contemporary, Detroit, MI
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 Beyond Typography, Janice Charach Gallery, West Bloomfield, MI
2023 Skilled Labor, Black Realism in Detroit, Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI
2023 Expressions: Works on Paper by African American Artists, Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI
2022 PRIZM, Basel Miami, Miami, FL
2022 Printmaking in the Twenty-First Century, Detroit institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
2022 Group Exhibition: Katrina Andry, Scherezade Garcia & Tylonn J. Sawyer, IBIS Contemporary, NewOrleans, LA
2021 Unveiling American Genius, Kalamazoo Institute of the Arts, Kalamazoo, MI
2021 Overture, Detroit Artist Market, Detroit, MI2021 Duel Vision, MOCAD, Detroit, Detroit, MI
2020 We Use to Gather, Library Street Collective, Detroit, MI
2020 Multifaceted Narratives: An Exploration of Black Figurative Art, Detroit Artist Market, Detroit, MI
2019 PRIZM, Basel Miami, Miami, FL
2019 Detroit Collects: Selections of African American Art from Private Collections, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
2019 All Together Now, A celebration of Art, Music & Food, Annex Gallery, Highland Park, MI
2019 Breaching the Margins, Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI
2019 Detroit Free Press Freep Film Festival, Detroit Institute of Arts Detroit, MI
2019 Juror, All Media Exhibition, Detroit Artist Market, Detroit, MI
2018 PRIZM, Basel Miami, Miami, FL
2018 Standing Still, Lying Down, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit
2018 MLK:50 Beyond the Balcony, Art Village Gallery, Memphis, TN
2018 Oso Bay Biennial XX: Realism Redux, Texas A & M, Corpus Christi, TX
2017 Sonic Rebellion: Music as Resistance, MOCAD, Detroit, Detroit, MI
2017 Say It Loud: Art, History, Rebellion, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, MI
2017 Hi-Res, Kravitz Wheby Gallery, New York, NY
2017 Detroit Grind, Rush Arts Galleries, New York, NY
2016 The Detroiter, Heron Arts, San Fransisco, CA
2016 (Curator)15 Steps: Perspectives in Drawing, Redbull House of Art, Detroit, MI
2016 The Body Eclectic, Lawrence St Gallery, Ferndale, MI (Juror)
2016 Friends of Friends, Redbull House of Art, Detroit, MI
2016 Faculty Exhibition, College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI
2016 Essay’d: Group Exhibition, Gallery 9338, Hamtramck, MI
2015 The Essential Self: Meditations on the Politics of Identity, Detroit Artists Market, Detroit, MI
2015 Alumni Show, Redbull House of Art, Detroit, MI
2015 A Night of Art and Science, Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, MI
2015 We Have a Dream, Inner State Gallery, Detroit, MI
2014 Abstracticus, PASSENGER Gallery, Detroit, MI
2014 Big Paintings at the Factory, The Factory, Highland Park, MI
2014 Chronicles, Valade Family Gallery, Detroit, MI
2014 Detroit @CTAC, Crooked Tree Art Center, Petoskey, MI
2013 MIImago Mundi (Luciano Benetton Project), 55th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale, Venice, IT
2013 Detroit Painters, Marygrove College Gallery, Detroit, MI
2013 The Past is Present, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit, MI
2013 Global Colors, The Scarab Club, Detroit, MI
2013 Cycle 4 Group Exhibition, Red Bull House of Art, Detroit, MI
2013 Contemporary American Authors, Marygrove College, Detroit, MI
2013 Single Fare, RH Gallery, New York, NY
2013 Black Detroit 21, Works Gallery University of Michigan Detroit Center, Detroit, MI
2012 Figure Drawing: A Variety of Approaches, Duderstadt Center Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI
2012 Naked or Nude, Figurative Art Exhibition, North End Studios, Detroit, MI
2012 Imbibe! A Toast to Potent Art, Virgil H. Carr Cultural Arts Center, Detroit, MI
2012 Felatastic, Virgil H. Carr Cultural Arts Center, Detroit, MI
2012 Two-Person Exhibition, New Work, Cass Café Gallery, Detroit, MI
2009 Faculty Art Exhibition, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI
2009 The Body Eclectic, Lawrence St Gallery, Ferndale, MI
2007 Summer Exhibition, Lawrence and Josephine C. Wilkinson Gallery, New York, NY
2006 Great Lakes Drawing Biennial, Ypsilanti, MI
2006 Art Masters Association Invitational, Ypsilanti, MI
2006 Faculty Art Exhibition, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI
2005 Faculty Art Exhibition, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI
2003 Master’s Thesis Exhibition, New York Academy, New York, NY
AWARDS / RESIDENCIES
2023 Good Hart Residency, Harbor Springs, MI
2019 Artists in Residence, Institute for the Humanities, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
2019 Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellowship, Visual Arts, Detroit, MI
2019 Artist in Residence, The Pierce & Hill Harper Art Foundation, Detroit, MI
2019 Best Film, All Together Now, A celebration of Art, Music & Food, Highland Park, MI
2019 Best Short Film, Freep Film Festival
2019 Alain Locke Award, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
2018 Grand Prize, Oso Bay Biennial XX: Realism Redux, Texas A & M, Corpus Christi TX
2013 Red Bull House of Art Artist in Residence, Detroit, MI (January-April)
2013 Honorable Mention, The Body Eclectic, Lawrence Street Gallery, Ferndale, MI
2013 Mural Commission, Whole Foods Market, Detroit MI
2006 Honorable Mention, Cash Prize, Art Masters Association Invitational, Ypsilanti MI
2003 Peter T. Rippon Travel Award, The Royal Academy of Art, London ENG
COMMISSIONS / PROJECTS
2019 Mural Project, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
2019 Mural Project, Avondale Community Hirsch Rec Center, Cincinnati, OH
2018 Film, American Gods N/A, The Big Screen: Cobo Art Marquee Series, Cobo Hall, Detroit, MI
2018 Mural, Student Life, Mike Ilitch School of Business, Detroit, MI
2018 Mural, Quicken Loans Small Business Mural, Detroit, MI
2018 Cover Art, Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump's America, NYQ Books, New York, NY
2018 Cover Art, B.L.A.C. Magazine, January 2018, Detroit, MI
2017 Mural, Muhammad Ali, Under Armor Corp, Detroit, MI
2016 Mural, Murals in the market, Eastern Market, Inner State Gallery, Detroit, MI
2016 Mural, Detroit Frieze, One Campus Martius, Detroit, MI
2015 Decorative Piano, Detroit Frieze, Belle Isle Conservatory, Detroit MI
2014 Mural, Reggie Bush, 527 Monroe, Redbull USA, Detroit, MI
2014 Cover Art, Waxing & Waning, Joel Green, Detroit, MI
2013 Mural, Detroit Remixed, Whole Foods Corporation, Detroit, MI
2013 Mural, Radiance, Collaboration w/Hank Willis Thomas, MOCAD, Detroit, MI
2013 Mural, We Deserve More: Fast Food Worker Rally, Collaboration w/Andrea Bowers, MOCAD, Detroit, MI
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Katherine Martinelli:” Classical training meets urban roots in Tylonn Sawyer’s paintings, which examine politics, race, history and pop culture”, June 2, 2020, https://seenthemagazine.com/spirit-of-detroit-tylonn-sawyer-paints-detroit/
Micah Walker:” He passed as a white student at U-M — but was actually college's first black enrollee”, October 19, 2019, https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/2019/10/19/samuel-codes-watson-unviersity-michigan-tylonn-j-sawyer/3992118002/
Ryan Patrick Hooper: “Why it's a breakout fall for the Detroit creators known as Vanguard Artist Collective”, October 12, 2019, https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/arts/2019/10/12/rashaun-rucker-sydney-james-tylonn-sawyer-detroit-vanguard-artist-collective/3942984002/
Sarah Rose Sharpe: “Creating a Pantheon of Black American Gods, from James Baldwin to Nina Simone”, August 30, 2018, https://hyperallergic.com/450226/tylonn-sawyer-american-gods-nnamdi-center-for-contemporary-art/
Desiree Cooper: “Detroit Proper: Re-examining Americana Through Black Art “, B.L.A.C
Magazine Detroit, August 2018,
http://www.blacdetroit.com/BLAC-Detroit/August-2018/Detroit-Proper-Re-examining-Americana-Through-Black-Art/
Dennis Alan Nawrocki, “Tylonn J. Sawyer”, Essay’d 2: 30 Detroit Artists, Detroit, Wayne State University Press 2017: 51.
Malissa Martin, “Trilogy”, Parkview Magazine, no.6 (July 2017): 68.
Michel Arnaud. “Detroit: The Dream Is Now”, New York: Abrams Books 2017: 120.
Tempe Nakisha, “The Detroit Survey," Hero Magazine, no.14 (October 2015): 251.
Emell Dera Adoolphus, "Tylonn Sawyer: Youth Program Producer at MOCAD", B. L. A. C. Magazine, April 1, 2014, http://www.blacdetroit.com/Tylonn-Sawyer-Youth-Program-Producer-at-MOCAD/
Ryan Patrick Cooper, "Stretching the Canvas: Inside the House of Art with Tylonn J. Sawyer", givesyouwings.redbull.com, January 2014, http://givesyouwings.redbull.com/us-en/stories/house-of-art/
RADIO / TELEVISION
Culture Shift, WDET, Detroit, MI, November 21, 2019, https://wdet.org/posts/2019/11/27/88938-detroit-artist-tylonn-sawyer-celebrates-white-history-month-at-university-of-michigan-gallery/
Studio 360, NPR, August 23, 2018, https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-08-23/past-present-tylonn-sawyer
Culture Shift, WDET, Detroit, MI, July 20, 2018, https://wdet.org/posts/2018/07/20/87071-american-gods-in-detroit-artist-tylonn-sawyers-new-exhibition-paints-the-political/
Detroit Performs, Detroit Public Television, July 11, 2016, http://www.detroitperforms.org/2016/07/detroit-performs-paintings-prints-and-candies/
Live in the “D”, WDIV Channel 4, Detroit, MI, January 27, 2014, http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/red-bull-house-of-art-debuts-in-detroit/24144014
World of Redbull Commercial, January 26, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV9Xk2YsrA4
Introducing MOCAD’s Teen Arts Council, WDET, Detroit, MI, December 11, 2013, https://soundcloud.com/wdet/introducing-the-mocad-teen
LECTURES / TALKS
2019 Artist Talk, Institute for the Humanities, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI, November 21.
2019 Lecture/Presentation, STAMPS School, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI, August 3.
2019 Lecture/Presentation, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI, February 10.
2018 Presentation/Panelist, University of Michigan, November 9-10.
2018 Artist Talk, N’Namdi Contemporary, MI, July 21.
2017 Panel discussion, Ripon College, Ripon, WI, September 22.
2017 Lecture/Presentation, Rush Arts, New York, NY, April 8.
2017 Lecture/Presentation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, February 6.
2016 Lecture/Presentation, Museum of Healing, Detroit, MI, September 18.
2016 Lecture/Presentation, Anton Arts Center, Mount Clemons, MI, July 20.
2015 Lecture/Presentation, College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI October 21.
2015 Lecture/Presentation, Detroit Artists Market, Detroit, MI, June 27.
2014 Artist Talk, N’Namdi Contemporary, Detroit, MI, January 12.
COLLECTIONS
Kalamazoo Institute of Art, MI
Hill Harper, CA
Dr. Charles Boyd, MI
Leland Colloway, MI
Marygrove College, MI
George N'namdi, MI
Eric Hill, MI
Desiree Cooper, MI
Dara Brown, MD
Dr. Lorna Thomas, MI
Dr. Edward Roberts, M
Dr. Tony Poretta, MI