Tyang Karyel Appreciates Everything Made by Hand

Tyang Karyel’s graphic and illustration background plays a vital role in her visual language, blended with folk art and influenced by Filipino pop culture, toys, and 80’s-90s cult films and comics. Her work satirically tackles people’s love of food and nostalgia for familiar brands and objects. Drawn to ephemeral consumerism and the aesthetic errors that come with mass production cycles, Karyel absorbs its visual cues as a form of art.

Exposed as she was to her father’s DIY practice of tailor-making at their home, Karyel spent most of her childhood in his backyard workshop, tinkering with his equipment. Her innate eye for three-dimensional spacing and her affinity for wood naturally embodied her practice as she shifted to fine arts. Karyel is one of the core members of the street art community in the southern metro, the CAVITY COLLECTIVE.

niceday_1 Cartellino
Nice Day. Pigment ink on 300 gsm matte archival paper (100% cotton). Edition of 20. 2020.


What music did you have growing up?

I grew up listening to different kinds of genres so up to this day, I appreciate all kinds of music from old to new.

What work of art last caught your eye?

There’s many to mention, I appreciate and I’m inspired by everything made from your own hands. 

Can you let us in on a current or upcoming project that excites you?

This year has been very weird and there's nothing more exciting than surviving 2020.

We’re playing charades. What is the hardest thing you could have someone guess?

I’ll have them guess the word “BILAO”

What do you think deserves more attention?

I don't know if this is a generalized question or about art, but there's a larger answer for this question but I don't know how to deal with it. lol


What would be your last meal?

If I die on my deathbed I don't think I can eat at all. but If I'm incarcerated and I am given my last meal, maybe I'll eat anything but laced with something that makes you feel “calm.”

Anchor photo: All Dogs Go to Heaven. Pigment ink on 300 gsm matte archival paper (100% cotton). Edition of 20. 2020.

Grab these featured artworks as prints. Go here for Nice Day. Click here for All Dogs Go to Heaven.

All images courtesy of the artist.