Tyré Nichols, artist: Photo exhibit at Memphis gallery puts focus on his 'creative side'

In the photograph, Tyré Nichols smiles, with a certain restraint.

He bites his lower lip with his teeth. His brow is shaded by the brim of a Los Angeles Clippers cap, and his eyes are hidden behind the blue lenses of white-framed sunglasses that reflect his hands: Hands holding a cellphone, to snap the very image described here.

The picture is a "selfie" — or perhaps the less informal term "self portrait" is more appropriate for a photograph that has been printed, framed and placed for public appreciation within an art gallery, where observers are asked to contemplate Tyré Nichols in the identity he chose for himself: not a victim, a martyr, a symbol, a statistic or a lightning rod for national debates about police brutality, systemic racism and the criminal justice system, but a hopeful young artist.

"I've been forced to see other images of my brother, really horrible images," said Keyana Dixon, older sister and self-described "mama bear" to Nichols, who died on Jan. 10, 2023, after he was pulled from his car, pepper-sprayed, chased, Tasered and beaten by Memphis police officers, whose violent actions were captured on body-camera and surveillance video. "This show makes me very happy, because I don't want people to remember him just for the tragedy."

On display through the end of August in the busy and artsy Cooper-Young neighborhood, "Tyre Nichols: A Photographic Legacy" is the first exhibition dedicated to the work of a young man who "carried his camera like a journal," to capture "the beauty he saw around him," in the words of Jay Etkin, owner of the Jay Etkin Gallery at 942 Cooper, who organized the show with the Nichols family.

The Memphis show comes more than two years after Nichols' art attracted national attention, after reporters and social justice advocates discovered the " T. Nichols Photography" website . In text accompanying the online reproduction of his digital camera and cellphone images, Nichols — who was 29 when he died — described himself as "an aspiring photographer" whose work enabled him to "look at the world in a more creative way" — and to reflect that world "through my eye."

The reflections of Nichols' "eye" — the Downtown murals, spring flowers, sunsets on the Mississippi River and so on — seemed especially chastening in contrast to the fists, boots and electronic darts of the surveillance video. Two months after the killing that fixed Nichols on a roll call of American tragedy alongside Trayvon Martin and George Floyd, Nichols' photographs were reproduced on billboards in the Coachella Valley in California and lauded in The New York Times, which reported that Nichols' work presented Memphis as "a vibrant city steeped in music and surrounded by nature."

Organizers of the show at the Jay Etkin Gallery — which doubles as Etkin's nonprofit Flow Museum of Art & Culture — say the delay between the national focus on Nichols' art and Nichols' first official gallery exhibition was necessary and intentional.

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"We've been going through so much constantly, but it seems like this was finally the right time, without all the chaos," said Dixon, 43, explaining that she did not want the art presented in the midst of the state and federal trials that kept the horror of his death in the news.

"We have the opportunity now to focus on the creative side of him," said Etkin, 75, who before Tyré's death was already friends with Tyré's stepfather, Rodney Wells. ("He's a great bear-hugger," Etkin said of Wells.)

"We can turn things around when we celebrate lives," he added. "We need to celebrate each other, not give in to hate and fear."

The details of the end of Nichols' young life are certainly fearful. According to a Shelby County Medical Examiner's report that classified the "manner of death" as "homicide," Nichols died at St. Francis Hospital from "blunt force injuries of the head," three days after he was beaten by Memphis police officers in his Hickory Hill neighborhood, where Nichols was stopped on what police described as suspicion of reckless driving.

The subsequent state and federal court cases involving the five officers charged in connection with his death delivered mixed results. Plea bargains and not guilty verdicts followed the state charges, which included second-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping, among others. In federal court, officers are awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty or being convicted on such charges as excessive force and witness tampering.

The baby of the family, Nichols and his sister and two brothers were raised in Sacramento, California. Tyré moved to Memphis shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, getting a job as a FedEx delivery driver and reuniting with his mother, RowVaughn Wells, who had moved here for work some 17 years ago and married Rodney Wells.

Keyana Dixon moved to Memphis after her brother's death, to help her mother cope with the trauma and confusion, legal and otherwise. Dixon already was well versed in the criminal justice system, as a longtime social worker in Sacramento County's Youth Detention Center, but she said that after her brother's death, "being around so many officers became intolerable." She now is devoting much of her time to the Tyré Nichols Foundation , which is pursuing such projects as a memorial skate park and creative arts programs for inner-city youth.

Dixon said her brother's move to Memphis ignited his creative spark. "He always took pictures, but something in Memphis really made him light up," she said, pointing out that her brother didn't launch his website until he came here.

The exhibit at the Jay Etkin Gallery is modest, consisting of nine prints inside 16-by-20-inch black frames, mounted along the south wall of the gallery. The photos might be in sympathetic conversation with the black-and-white pictures on the opposite wall: historic images by the Hooks Brothers, the Black photographers who documented Memphis for decades, starting over a century before Nichols' arrival here. Also inside the gallery are tribal masks, sculptures and other examples of African art.

Three of Nichols' photographs are self portraits. Another is an oddly cropped Eggleston-esque shot of plastic cups and Coors cans on a repurposed ping-pong table. Meanwhile, an image of twisted tree branches silhouetted against a hazy sky "almost looks like it came out of a Hitchcock film," Etkin said. "It's mysterious, it's a little eerie." Prints of the images are available, for $650 each.

An artist and longtime gallery owner, the Bronx-born Etkin came to Memphis 41 years ago, for a supposed short visit that became a lifetime commitment. He said he has been a "mentor" to many young artists during that time, and wished he'd had a chance to work with Nichols.

"His photos were about presence," Etkin said. "He documented everyday scenes in ways that elevated them, made them sing. You get the sense he was trying to slow time down, to hold onto moments that mattered."

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Tyré Nichols' photos on display at Memphis gallery: An inside look