dream 007: kyler garrison on consuming filth, confronting Truth™, and the church on the mount

Kyler and The Church of Holy Transfiguration of Christ on the Mount

In 2022, I met Kyler. After following his work for a while, when I took my first trip to New York that year, I decided to ask him if I could do a studio visit. The first time, he was out of town, but I went anyway, as his friend was tattooing there. I had booked to get one on Kyler’s recommendation, and me not knowing anyone in the city at the time, took the chance. When he turned up towards the end of my appointment unannounced, I turned as red as my fresh, raw tattoo. I had become a random English stalker girl. Honestly, I assumed, being a painter, skater, and man living in New York, he was going to be a bit of a dick. How extremely wrong I was.

One day that October, he took me on a road trip to upstate New York, Woodstock, and it was there that we visited The Church of Holy Transfiguration of Christ on the Mount (many of the pictures I took here ended up in The Velvet Coffin). Tip-toeing up the wooden steps, as though expecting Jack Nicholson, wielding an axe, to burst through the front door, my thought process went something like ‘this is so beautiful, it’s like the beginning of a horror film.’ The perfect date. Three years later, present day, and we decided to visit the Church again on a rainy, humid day in late July. I turned to him as we pulled up outside, asking why he wanted to bring me here the first time, my vision rose-tinted as the sun refracted a halo around him. “I don’t know, I just googled cool places to visit in Woodstock,” he shrugged, “I wanted to impress you.”

Since neither of us knew anything about the church but forged a connection to it, I decided to take this opportunity to get dragged down the rabbit hole, as it’s also the setting for the photos in this article, taken on that gloomy July day. As one of the rare surviving examples of Gothic revival architecture, and possibly one of the smallest churches ever built, it’s been lurking in the woods since 1891. Originally built so people didn’t have to trek from the mountains into town by foot or carriage to attend services, it became dubbed “Chapel of Ease.” A reputation which preceded itself during the 1960s, when the ‘Hippie Priest’ Father John Francis sheltered the kids of Woodstock at the church when other townspeople wanted to kick them out for camping and partying in the surrounding fields. 

An iconic figure of the town, he worked to protect European Jews during World War II, as well as using the church as a haven for musicians, artists and rock stars during its heyday. Father Francis had even set up a little study behind the back wall of the altar, where supposedly Bob Dylan used to sit during mass. When the Tibetan Buddhists set up the monastery next door in 1978, he’d reportedly go and have tea with the lamas, engaging in deep conversations like making fun of each other’s religions with “awful puns."

Even though culturally, we haven’t seen a summer of love since the 90s, it feels right to publish this as we approach the passing of summer 2025. I’m not saying we should all be hippies, but maybe there is something to be said for how this little religious love shack was a moment for many emerging artists to recalibrate after their hedonistic acid trips. With the rising pressure of young artists being poached by big gallery players before their careers even take off, the current art market is seeing a shift in traditional artist career narrative arcs. Amidst this battle, I wanted to talk to Kyler about his current feelings of burnout and what’s helping him get through. Sorry to disappoint, but it’s not acid.

alisha: I wanted to start by talking to you about the first studio visit I did with you in 2022. We talked a lot about how important music is to your process. I didn't know before that when you make a painting, you're usually making music alongside it as well. So I want to know more about that.

kyler: Fuckin' hell, alright, here we go. It's nice to communicate these things through different mediums. I get stuck a lot in my process, I get stuck with paintings, I get stuck with whatever I work on, so it's nice to change the rhythm and remind myself of the intention - the why - of what I’m working on through an entirely different medium. Whether that's drawing, painting, music, etc. It helps me to equate the feelings that I'm trying to portray and communicate via a painting. It helps me understand that to try to relate it thematically or symbolically with music that I'm listening to or music that I am attempting to make so that I can further understand what and why I'm making. Working on multiple things at once through different mediums helps me gain that clarity to complete something. 

a: That makes sense.

k: It’s quite hard for me to complete anything these days. 

a: Do you think so?

k: I'm experiencing prolonged burnout at this point in time, so. 

a: You did work a lot last year in the lead-up to your show. And, it’s hard to make new work when you’re out of energy because then you only get frustrated that you’re not creating at the level you feel the need to.

k: I've rarely experienced burnout in this capacity, maybe ever. So I'm learning to do what I can to continue exercising, creating things, but it's just taking some time to return to what I think I'm supposed to be doing.

a: What kind of music helps you with that? I know you get obsessed with different music, so I want to know what it is right now.

k: Yeah, I mean, my musical interests and, I guess, aesthetic interests as well are very obsessive, and they seem to drastically change depending on, obviously, how I'm feeling, what I have going on. Right now it’s a lot of black metal.

a: Who are you listening to at the moment? I can’t remember the name of the band you were telling me about.

k: Oh yeah, I’m listening to a lot of Sadness, and this Ukrainian band, Angel Satanist. A friend from Sweden also just put out a great album under the name Vanskapth.

a: Ah, yes! I feel like maybe two years ago it would have been... Oh, what's the fucking word for it? The music that makes my head hurt. 

k: Oh, gabber. 

a: No, I like that.

k: Breakcore. 

a: Yes! 

k: Yeah, neither very peaceful.

a: You did have an ambient phase. 

k: I mean, yeah, but I enjoy trying to dissect what I'm listening to, both technically and emotionally, and I think that helps me rationalise my own pursuits.

a: Do you think of your pieces as products?

k: Paintings. 

a: Do you feel like painting is a transactional process?

k: Well, it's hard not to feel like it is sometimes. In my current break from painting, I'm making an attempt to rediscover my love and intentions behind creating. What I want to make that will transcend the context of showing and selling. The what and why.

a: Would you ever want to do an installation that mixes your paintings and your music? 

k: Yeah, I want to do that again. I did that for my first solo with Plan X in Milan. There was an ambient composition that accompanied the paintings on opening night. 

a: Wait, really? I feel bad, I forgot about that.

k: Yeah, it was playing in the gallery. I never released it as it was just a part of that, and that's so long ago now. But hopefully, again, at some point, I can combine the two. It's always kind of difficult to imagine it in the context of an opening in a white wall gallery, so it has to be the right opportunity, the right approach, installation, whatever, for me to want to do that again, I guess. 

a: What do you hate most about the art world? 

k: It feels difficult to keep up with everything. The onslaught of shows, sales, art world politics, every day on the internet and in NYC makes it hard not to compare yourself and your practice to others. There is motivation to be found within that, but it is disorienting at times to feel lost within the abundance of it all. Ultimately, my biggest qualm is more of an internal one, rather than external, which is the constant need to ‘keep up,’ which is really just counterproductive to authenticity. I try to remind myself of that, and am always attempting to figure out how to lose such a habit.

a: For sure.

k: The ideas, and not so much the practice, for me have always been quite inconsistent. It’s annoying to be in the studio wanting to paint, but not being confident enough in my ideas to take action. They seem to work themselves out slower than the act of painting does.

a: I think it’s because of the pace that everything moves at, and you see people online producing a lot of stuff, all the time. Everything seems to be tied to time spans.

k: It's incredibly hard to keep up with it, and to be ignorant to the idea of staying, quote, caught up, because that's not the purpose of my work, you know. 

a: Yeah, and like I tell you this all the time, but painters take years sometimes to even make a single piece of work, and I feel like now it's expected of artists to have such a quick turnaround time, it’s constant. I don't like the feeling of artists being the new influencers, just churning out content. 

k: Yeah, by no means is it content at all, but it's also very easy to delude yourself into thinking you must consistently be sharing work in order to stay relevant, and have opportunities arise.

a: I don't mean that like your work is like content.

k: Not at all. I agree with you. It’s easy to fall into that way of thinking, as the internet, Instagram in particular, is a useful ‘tool’ but will never be just a tool - it is social media, where people go to create and share content to capitalise on.

a: Yeah, I think some people do think of making paintings or art like making content, which I think is so sad. Unless it’s a commentary on manipulating the algorithm or something.

k: There's definitely a difference between painters and painters as content creators. There has obviously been a massive influx of painting as content on Instagram, especially in the last few years. They don't love it.

a: Do you still feel like you're having a battle with connecting your worth to your work?

k: Yeah, I've always felt that way. I directly equate my worth to my work. It's difficult to navigate when I'm not creating good work or not creating any work.

a: Do you feel like you wouldn't know what to do if you didn't make artwork? 

k: Of course. I have no idea. I'm unsure of where I would be or what I would be doing if I didn't attempt to create. I'd probably equate my worth to some other abstract and pointless metric.

a: I think you are worth more than your work, if that means anything. 

k: Of course, that does. It's always a nice reminder, but hard to actively practice that mindset. 

a: I know, I feel like your work has changed a lot in the past three years, like when I first met you were putting little stickers and stuff on them.

k: Yeah, I mean, I've made a lot of juvenile work. I understand that, and I’ve had fun. Where I'm at now, I feel that intention is so important, and if I'm not creating something with intention or truth, then it has no right to exist. Nobody asked me to make paintings, nobody asked for my work to exist, so I’m just trying to stay consistent with honesty and intention in my work.

a: Yeah. 

k: Attempting to neglect my modern-day biases and the things I consume. Just being on the internet all day, exposing myself to obviously lots of memes, irony, all of that, which feels filthy to allow that to inform my work rather than something more internal and removed from pop culture, you know? 

a: How do you feel as a consumer of the internet today? It’s a pretty fucked up place and not fun anymore in my opinion. 

k: Oh yeah, obviously. I was born in 2001. I've had unfiltered access to the internet my whole life. I saw numerous beheading videos on Facebook when I was 10. I have overwhelmed myself my whole life with consuming meaningless media. It's hard to remove myself from that, because if I'm referencing anything on the internet, found imagery, or pop culture, then that doesn't feel true to me. That's not to say there's not a place for work that is social commentary, but that's not the work that I want to be creating. I want to be creating based on my own images, things, feelings. And I think that's where I've started to become more creatively paralysed because it's much harder to do that, it takes much more critical thought to make something true and internally informed rather than make something that's purely referential.

a: Yeah, I wonder if it's your work becoming more of a confrontation, which is interesting to me, as your work has always felt soft in some ways. You create these scenes or you use objects that have sentimental meaning, and it's maybe confronting you with the truth they bring. It's hard, you see that truth in real life compared to when it's translated in a painting, it’s so different, and it's never like how you imagine it to be in your brain, but it’s just how you figure out your own visual language.

k: Yeah, I mean, I'm not trying to answer any questions with my work, nor am I necessarily trying to raise any questions, but I agree with you, obviously, the visual language is what's important and trying to centre that visual language in something so much more internal than external. 

a: That's where you gotta take your time with it. 

k: Of course, that's where I'm at. I haven't painted in months. 

a: Well, you have been painting, but you haven't made anything that you like. 

k: Yeah, it might take a while before that happens again. Anything that I might paint that has the same approach as my last couple of years of work will inevitably be below my expectations for myself. I don't want to make another still life painting. I want to feel proud of my work.

a: I'd love to see what your version of a portrait is, because I feel like you'd never do it too on the nose. I think you’re work is quite Gothic in some ways, like composing nostalgic artefacts as a medieval piece. So, I think you’re portrait style would maybe be similar, or like a Fresco on big Church walls. Those artists always needed to work quickly, too, because of the materials they were using, and you’re always pretty fast.

k: I'd love to step into the figurative, make some paintings that have more movement, that have more life. Ideally, I’ll implement more oil painting in my work. I just don't exactly know what that looks like yet. 

a: That's exciting, though. 

k: It's confusing. 

a: Which is exciting because it's a problem to solve. 

k: I like solving problems. 

a: Have you ever done a Rubik's Cube? 

k: No, but I excelled at math in school. 

a: Did you? Oh yeah, I know this. 

k: Until it got too hard, and then I didn't do it anymore. 

a: Yeah, didn't you do like a, what's it called when you do a class early or something?

k: I did like an accelerated math course the first couple years of high school, so by the time I was in 10th grade, I was taking college calculus, but it became too difficult and quick at that point.

a: Have you ever used maths in your work, like compositionally?

k: Not really, I’m not too sure what that would look like. There are great painters like Edward Povey, we saw his last show in NYC together, that are very compositionally concise using mathematical rules. But yeah, no math for me currently.

a: Apart from chess. 

k: Yeah. 

a: We’re not going to talk about chess?

k: I guess that's my outlet for problem-solving these days. 

a: Do you still watch it before you go to sleep? 

k: Yeah, I study chess every day. 

a: [laughs]

k: I knew you were gonna laugh at that. I was, you know, giving you your chance to laugh at my special interests. 

a: Obsessive interest, I'd call it. 

k: I'm quite obsessive.

k: It's not necessarily a bad thing, obviously, there are some things which aren't healthy, but I think it's good to have obsessions. What’s another obsession you have at the moment?

k: Uh, just chess.

a: Not your girlfriend? [laughs]

k: My girlfriend. 

[redacted]

k: Well, is that it? 

a: No, it's not it. I'll tell you when it's time to finish. Thank you very much. 

k: Well, relationship conversation isn't publishable material.

a: How do you know that's not what I'm going to make this whole article about? I might just get rid of all the important artist bits that you just told me about.

k: [laughs]

a: Just kidding, this is my last question. What was the last dream that you had?

k: I had a really weird dream last night. My dreams hold no significance, value, cohesion or do not contain anything that applies to how I feel or how I navigate the world, but…

a: That's not true. 

k: I had a weird dream last night where I raised four massive beetles. I had acquired tiny little baby beetles and then raised them to be beautiful, shiny, piercing specimens.

a: Fair enough. Maybe like the scarab beetle, it can mean rebirth, which would make sense.

k: No, like I said, it has no real-world value. I dream complete delusions. Normally, I don't remember them. 

a: Well, I enjoy indulging your delusions.

k: But when I woke up today and went into the bathroom, every time I go in there, I’m ready to see a cockroach, and in my thought of preparing to see a cockroach, I remembered my dream in which I raised four beautiful beetle specimens. 

Double-sided poster from 2022 is available to buy here

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