Lyle XOX

Lyle XOX, the Vancouver Canada-based artist has developed a practice that combines his experience in art, fashion, design, and make-up artistry to create striking images using his own body as canvas and plinth. Surrounding himself with found objects, Lyle XOX creates facial sculptures and adornments to design fictional characters that defy gender, cultural and beauty norms. Each photographed portrait is a study in contrast and fantasy, with humour and irony woven throughout. The work of Lyle XOX immediately resonates in our social media-soaked society, which prioritises the connection between images of one’s face with social identity. His photographs challenge notions of masculinity and femininity, embracing a spirit of duality and joie de vive. At the same time, the bold gaze of his characters directly confronts viewers with the dysfunctional relationship with the material world and their own carbon footprint—the detritus of capitalism. The work interrogates the interplay of meaning and material in everyday objects as they pass through their life cycle. He presents himself as both subject and object in the self-portraits, wherein the found objects that are used in the construction of the facial sculptures hold equal importance to the form on which they are attached to. Through acknowledging the unspoken stories and many anonymous hands that touched the found objects prior to their role in the work, he creates an homage to the past and celebrates the beauty of re-invention.