Tyler Ormsby: Balloon

Tyler G. Ormsby (b. 1994, Vallejo, CA, lives and works in San Francisco, CA)

House of Seiko is pleased to present Balloon, the gallery’s second solo exhibition by San Francisco–based Tyler Ormsby, opening Saturday, November 15, from 5:00 to 8:00 PM. The exhibition features a new series of oil paintings and light sculptures that meditate on levity, weightlessness, and transcendence—an extension of an experience witnessing a gathering of hot air balloons over the Nevada desert.

In these works, Ormsby translates that moment of collective suspension into a restrained, painterly vocabulary. His figures—loosely human, winged, or adrift—hover within fields of pale yellows, greens, and grays. Rendered in softened forms and veiled color, they rest between ascent and stillness, as if tethered to both air and ground, gesturing toward the sensation of lift.

Ormsby’s process emphasizes the physicality of paint while maintaining a sense of openness and calm. Lemon-tinted gesso, vine charcoal, and muted pastel combine with layered oil to create subtle shifts in surface and tone. Washes of translucent pigment are interrupted by denser, tactile passages, forming a rhythm between atmosphere and weight. 

Accompanying the paintings are two new light sculptures composed of found materials—beach stones, copper rods, and dried gourds—that echo the balance between gravity and illumination. Light emanates softly from the gourds, anchored by the mass of stone below. Their modest construction reflects Ormsby’s ongoing interest in how ordinary materials can be rearranged into something greater.

Drawing upon a lineage of Post-Impressionist semi-abstraction—from Vuillard and Bonnard to Munch—Ormsby merges expressive painterliness with minimalist restraint. In Balloon, the figure and ground dissolve into one continuum, where color and texture assume narrative force. 

Tyler Ormsby has been the subject of solo and two-person exhibitions at Altman Siegel (2025), Gern en Regalia, New York (2025), New Remedios, Manila (2024), and House of Seiko, San Francisco (2023). Selected group exhibitions include Ruttowski 68, New York (2024), Et, al, San Francisco (2024) and Ratio 3, San Francisco (2022).