Mikey Yates
Sourcing from memory and family photographs, Mikey Yates’ paintings illustrate the tender intimacy of quotidian experiences and relationships. Yates centers his exploration of these universal themes on his upbringing as a Filipino-American with both parents and siblings enlisted in the military. Having relocated every few years to cities around the globe, his genre scenes possess a characteristic magnetism, as though they exist at once in the present and in memory. Confessional in nature, these paintings recount private moments that occur with dearest friends and family, like late-night rooftop conversations or the silence in playing a simple game of chess. Apart from the hyper-focused events in the paintings, Yates' interior spaces are accessorized with belongings collected from across the world, furnishing a temporary home while pointing to many places at once. The artist's work, rooted in the personal, renders cultural hybridity, storytelling, and delicate markers of important and lasting memories that influence one's framework for joy, happiness, and hope for the future.
Mikey Yates (b. 1992, Sulzbach Rosenberg, Germany; Lives and works in Kansas City, MO) has a BFA from Missouri State University and has recently completed an MFA at the University of Colorado, Boulder. In addition to the artist's forthcoming solo exhibition at Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, Yates' recent solo exhibitions include Boomerang, Taymour Grahne, London, UK and Hard in the Paint, Rule Gallery, Marfa, TX. His work has been featured in group exhibitions at Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, CA; The Hole, New York, NY; Taymour Grahne, London, UK; COMA Gallery, Sydney, AUS; Steven Zevitas Gallery, Boston, MA; and 1969 Gallery, New York City, NY. Yates’s work has been featured twice in New American Paintings, in addition to Forbes, BOOOOOOOM!, Juxtapoz, YNGSPC, Friend of the Artist, and Create Magazine.
. 
