James Tylor (b. 1986) is an Australian multi-disciplinary contemporary visual artist. He was born in Mildura, Victoria. He is of Nunga (Kaurna Miyurna), Māori (Te Arawa) and European (English, Scottish, Irish, Dutch and Norwegian) heritage. He spent his childhood in Menindee in far west New South Wales, and then moved to Kununurra and Derby in the Kimberley region of Western Australia in his adolescent years. From 2003 to 2008, James trained and worked as a carpenter in Australia and Denmark. Tylor holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Photography) from the South Australian School of Art in Adelaide and in 2012 he completed Honours in Fine Arts (Photography) at the Tasmanian School of Art in Hobart.
Based in Canberra, Tylor has exhibited extensively across Australia in both solo and group exhibitions and is represented in collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Monash University Museum of Art, Shepparton Art Museum, Artbank, Kluge Ruhe Aboriginal Art Museum, USA, and the Australian Embassy, Washington DC. From 2013, he returned to Adelaide and further completed a Masters in Visual Arts and Design (Photography) at the South Australian School of Art. Since completing his tertiary education, he continually researches Indigenous and European colonial history with a deep focus on South Australia and Kaurna history.
Within his creative practice, Tylor is known to traverse and combine various photographic techniques, including 19th century daguerreotype, wet-plate and digital format, while simultaneously combining photography with carved, engraved, cast and collaged methods. Tylors multidisciplinary practice often incorporates and is informed by various modes of curation, research and academia. Through this, he consistently addresses the ongoing impacts of settler-colonisation within Australia that exist culturally, politically and environmentally.
