Based in Los Angeles, Shields works within staged photography to examine power, spectacle, and the construction of contemporary identity. His practice draws from cinematic language, advertising, and art historical reference, using controlled production to interrogate the visual codes of glamour and authority.

Shields’ photographs are characterized by precise composition, heightened realism, and deliberate tension. Familiar objects, figures, and symbols are repositioned within destabilized scenarios, allowing themes of consumerism, desire, and excess to emerge without narrative resolution. The images operate between attraction and discomfort, emphasizing surface while undermining certainty.

On view are selections from across Shields’ photographic practice, including works that explore portraiture, material symbolism, and performative gesture. Issued in limited editions, the photographs foreground scale, finish, and scarcity as integral components of meaning rather than secondary attributes.

Shields’ work has been presented internationally and is held in significant private and institutional collections. His practice is defined by a sustained challenge to photographic convention, positioning the medium as a site of confrontation and cultural critique. The artist’s work is presented throughout December at Samuel Lynne Galleries.

More on Tyler Shields

This video documents the making of one of Shields’ most recognized works, in which a Ferrari is set on fire as part of a controlled photographic production. 

The act is presented not as spectacle, but as construction, using destruction, precision, and staging to examine power, luxury, and the instability of cultural symbols.