-2026
Tylor McNeil's 2026 Collection ' P U R E ' is Available Now at ASHDALE Gallery, North Vancouver.
The series ' P U R E '
begins with white roses because they are instantly readable, elegance, joy, celebration, a kind of ceremonial beauty. They feel approachable, almost luminous, like they belong in moments of tenderness. I wanted the paintings to be inviting enough that a viewer can simply enjoy the surface, the softness, the form, the atmosphere it creates. Beauty in art should be allowed to exist without arguments
Then I add the skull. It changes the emotional temperature of the work, not by turning it ugly, but by making it honest. The skull asks what purity really means when life is not clean, when people are not simple, and when desire, failure, and growth are part of the same human story. It challenges the comforting idea that purity is something we can achieve once and keep forever. If a rose symbolizes innocence, the skull symbolizes the limits of innocence—mortality, consequence, and the reality that everything changes.
I’m drawn to the way “pure” can be both aspiration and warning. At its best, purity can represent clarity: the desire to be true, to be sincere, to strip away what is false. But I also know how purity can become rigid. A standard meant to guide can become a rule meant to control. An intention can become an obsession. When purity turns into a demand, the result is often a kind of spiraling vigilance—an endless negotiation with fear.
This is where I want viewers to lean in, not because I’m offering judgment, but because I’m offering a question with room in it. Where do we draw the line between wanting integrity and seeking perfection? Where does self-respect become self-punishment? Where does “doing the right thing” become an attempt to eliminate uncertainty altogether? In Pure, I’m exploring the psychological motion of that slide, how it can begin with longing and end with exhaustion.
Ultimately, I want the paintings to hold contradiction without resolving it quickly. The roses remain roses; they do not disappear. The skull remains present; it does not become merely decorative. Together they create a space where viewers can notice their own relationship to purity—whether they crave it, resist it, or have felt it tighten around them. If you want to go deeper, the work will meet you there. If you only want to feel the beauty, the beauty will still be there first, and fully.
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