LYLE XOX: ABOUT FACE

BY PAUL GESSELL

The XOX is a stand-in for the word “love.” But to the farmers of Wymark, a hamlet near Swift Current in southwest Saskatchewan, he is Lyle Reimer.

“I always felt like an alien,” the Vancouver-based Lyle says of his prairie childhood. His schoolmates played hockey. Young Lyle rode around town on a unicycle. Even before primary school, he was designing costumes. He was into crafts and liked using recycled materials. He was ridiculed and misunderstood.

Lyle XOX and Lyle Reimer will become one later this year at the Art Gallery of Swift Current with the exhibition Head of Design, a collection of photographs of otherworldly creations in which Lyle’s shoulders serve as the plinth for a face and head layered with makeup, wigs, and a bizarre assortment of recycled bric-a-brac. The results are fantasy characters usually found only in fairy tales, science fiction, or childhood dreams. Pleasant dreams, not nightmares, because these androgynous “living sculptures” are never scary. Rather, they are surprisingly approachable, with a sly sense of humour and loads of irony.

Lyle says he initially thought of refusing the invitation from the Swift Current gallery. He eventually decided to go home again and accepted the invitation. “I thought this is a time to reclaim a part of myself,” Lyle said in a recent interview. “I see it as a big moment and I’m excited about it.”

Lyle will not just be arriving as a boy from Wymark. He will be riding a wave of fabulousness as the creator of the book Lyle XOX: Head of Design; an Instagram sensation; the subject of a CBC Gem documentary called Random Is My Favourite Colour, and a darling of Vogue magazine. (He has been named one of the Vogue World 100 for pushing the boundaries of art, beauty, and style.)

Kim Houghtaling, director of the Swift Current gallery, understands Lyle’s emotions: “I feel Lyle wants to show his work here because of his experiences with disconnection from his communities here, and maybe a need to express himself loud and clear in a place where he, his self, was kept quiet as a child.”

People may think they have Lyle all figured out. Surely, he is a wild clubbing partier. Actually, he is more of a stay-at-home guy whose idea of a fun night is to invite friends over for dinner. His thrills come from finding beauty in the ordinary household objects most of us overlook. And no, Lyle’s creations are not all manifestations of himself. Lyle says he simply wants to create objects of beauty and wonder. Think of an actor who can convincingly play roles totally different from his own personality.

“It’s not like these characters are inside of my head and they’re trying to come out,” he says. He does not plan things out in advance. Instead, he sets out various objects that could potentially be employed — such things as turkey bones, plastic utensils, coat hangers, cereal boxes, and fabric swatches. Think of Brian Jungen’s repurposed running shoes or lawn chairs. Each object alone is unimpressive. Rearranged and combined in unique ways, they become art.

For Lyle, the makeup comes first, or sometimes a wig or other headpiece. Then he spontaneously applies recycled objects to his face and head. He says he’s not even aware what his hands are doing and likens the process to an out-of-body experience.

Lyle began experimenting with “living sculptures” in 2013, after more than a decade in the fashion and cosmetics industry, by bringing together all his interests: art, makeup, recycling, and fashion.

Kim Houghtaling views Lyle’s creations through the lens of art history, starting with the portrait bust, “a clean, close-up look at a person’s face, their identifying features down to their upper shoulders. Lyle XOX is using the portrait bust tradition, the model portrait bust and the self-portrait selfie, as known modes of expression of identity or symbolic identity — the expression of the self, the ideal self, or iconic identity. He then combines this with meaningful or symbolic constructed elements into a highly expressive force.”

Lyle XOX creates magical works of artful mischief. He leaves us smiling and full of wonder for the small-town alien who turned recycling into big-city glam.

This article first appeared in Galleries West, an award-winning digital magazine at www.gallerieswest.ca that has covered the visual arts in Western Canada since 2002.

Lyle XOX is represented by Jennifer Kostuik Gallery in Vancouver. His first solo exhibition, Head of Design has been scheduled for September 2020.