Jason Alexander Byers internalized targets when, as a kid, he willingly became one. As an ice hockey goalie in Pittsburgh, he found himself intercepting missiles for sport. Byers started externalizing targets when he noticed the bull’s-eye-like aspect of a screen print he’d made interleaved with the United Nations logo. The targets illustrate Byers long-term intent to use art to defang weaponry: skyscrapers, churches, corporate logos, weapons, flags-each of these things becomes a letter in Byers’ alphabet.
Previous art projects include multiples of tanks, bombers and fighter jets crafted with Sensodyne toothpaste, whose soft pinks and greens muted the destructive imagery into farce. Following that was the suet tank birdseed molded into tank shape again using ephemeral humor against the harsh lens of ideology.
Byers studied sculpture at Kent State University. Although the University’s hockey team took him on, he turned his attention to the absurd, indulgent and wildly inventive arts and music scenes of Kent, Ohio. It was music that took him on tours across Europe and the United States as the vocalist of well-known Cleveland-based band Disengage. Signed to Man’s Ruin—the same label turning out The Melvins and Queens of the Stone Age at the time the music was in line with the heavy, sludgy rock of the early aughts.
After moving to Brooklyn in 2009, Byers has continued working on fine art and music - his new band Black Black Black released their debut album in early 2013. Building on his fascination with cityscapes and skylines, his most recent art project involves tracing the positive and negative space of New York City’s churches using tar, watercolors, and india ink. While not strictly iconoclastic his fascination with churches and skylines stems in large part from their structural beauty his most recent psychedelic projects nonetheless call to question an obsessive fascination with the buildings and the ideas inside them. His newest tar and paper series of mirror images conjure up all the implicit menace of a Rorschach inkblot, with pop culture being the prime target.
Shows
2019
"Frankensteins" Solo Show, 22 Ludlow St, New York, NY
"Black Black Black” Group Show, Aqualamb, Printed Matter's NY Art Book Fair, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY
“Altered Stated of Death and Grace" Group Show, Aqualamb, LA Art Book Fair, Los Angeles, CA
"Highs and Lows” Group Show, Mast Books, New York, NY
2018
“I Did it For You" Solo Show, 1047 Flushing Ave, Brooklyn, NY
“The Argument” Two Artist Show, 1047 Flushing Ave, Brooklyn, NY
2017
“312 Bowery" Group Show, Kwadrat, Berlin, Germany
“312 Bowery" Group Show, Beutler Fine Arts, Paris, France
2016
"Hieronymus Bosch: Contemporary Artists Celebrating the Master”Group Show, National Arts Club, New York, New York
“50 States, 50 Birds” Solo Show, Burning in Water Art, New York, New York
2015
"Love Birds" Solo Show, Garis & Hahn, New York, New York
"312 Bowery" Group Show, Stagecoach Run Art Festival, Franklin, New York
"Yellow Worm's Hole" Group Show, 44 Bowery, New York, New York
“Targets” Instigator Design, LA Art Book Fair, Los Angeles, California
2014
“Bushwick 500” Group Show, English Kills, Brooklyn, New York
"Window at 125” Solo Show, Roger Smith Hotel, New York, New York
“English Vilz Pop Up” Group Show, Brooklyn, New York
"312 Bowery" Group Show, Pop Up Gallery, Venice Beach, California
“Insitu Works Launch Party" Group show, New York, New York
"English Vilz Pop Up" Group show, Brooklyn, New York
“Transition” Solo Show, Hedge Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio
“Double Blind" Garis & Hahn, New York, New York
"Group Show" New Patron Pop Up Gallery, New York, New York
2013
“City: Surface and Texture” Dickinson Roundell Inc., New York, New York
"What is an Art Book” Garis & Hahn, New York, New York
“As Below, So Above" This Red Door Gallery, Berlin, Germany
“Bang Bang Group Show" Bang Bang Inc., New York, New York
2012
"Evil Ohio" Breakneck Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio
“50/50" Dredgers Union, Cleveland, Ohio
"Truck Show" Bushwick Open Studios, Brooklyn, New York
2011
"Slap Happy" Wynwood Walls Art Basel Miami, Miami, Florida
"Working Artists" AC Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
"Mensch Kraft Group Show" Mensch Kraft Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
“Time and Place” Pandemic Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
“50/50" Smartspace, Cleveland, Ohio
"12 Pieces of My Past and Present" Solo Show, Mensch Kraft Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
2010
“Zu Beginn” Mensch Kraft Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
“Clear Signs” Wall Eye, Cleveland, Ohio
“Sonic Landscapes” Asterisk Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio
2009
“Asterisk at Ingenuity Fest,” Cleveland, Ohio
"Screens" B-Side, Cleveland, Ohio
2008
"All Things Cleveland," Asterisk Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio
"Counting Days," Asterisk Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio
"19," Asterisk Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio
2007
"Silly Putty," Parish Hall, Cleveland, Ohio
2006
"When the Earth Was Flat," Parish Hall, Cleveland, Ohio
2005
“Dissent: Political Voices," Spaces, Cleveland, Ohio
"Eat Sugar Spend Money," Newsense Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio
2004
“Art Rock," Lake Erie College, Painsville, Ohio
2002
“Towering,” 1300, Cleveland, Ohio