Origins
The Beginning
San Antonio, Texas · 2000
Rex Autry was born at the beginning of the third millennium — the year 2000 — in the working-class neighborhood of Olmos Park Terrace, on the outskirts of urban San Antonio, and adjacent to the wealthy enclave of Olmos Park.
As a child, Rex experienced many things that made San Antonio unique. As one of the oldest cities in the continental United States, dating back to pre-colonial times, the city carried a rich and vibrant history that would reflect greatly on his perception of art.
With a Hispanic and Native background alongside an Anglo-Irish heritage, the bright colors of Mexican art — traditional dress, native holiday celebrations like Día de Muertos, Tejano brass bands — made the power of color a necessity in his work from the beginning.
The Autry name itself carries weight in Texas. Micajah Autry, a poet and lawyer, died at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836. That history is not lost on Rex.
Houston, Texas · 2008
By the age of eight, Rex's family had moved to Houston. The 2007 global recession had made it difficult to keep work in San Antonio.
Houston was different. Larger, faster, more diverse than anything he had encountered before. Over the next decade, he heard Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian, German, French, and Urdu spoken on a regular basis in the same neighborhoods. The city's sheer scale and cultural density changed how he saw the world — and eventually, how he made work.
He began to travel the city as much as possible, discovering the enormous art scene Houston had to offer. He started to research — finding out everything there was to know about art history and its giants: Picasso, Rothko, Pollock, Klimt, Van Gogh, Warhol, Basquiat.
The Practice · 2021
2021 was the beginning.
In six months, Rex produced nearly 100 paintings — usually in the late night or at midday, at his peaks of creative thought. Working in oil-based ink and acrylic on canvas and paper, he developed a practice built on urgency, accumulation, and revision.
He began appearing at First Saturday Arts Market in Houston Heights, selling originals directly to collectors from a booth at 540 W 19th St. No gallery, no representation, no institutional support. Just the work and the people willing to stand in front of it.
By 2026, he had documented 723 works across five years.
Tyrannographics
The brand Tyrannographics preceded the painting practice. It began as Tyranno Graphics & Co. — a graphic design operation Rex ran while attending Klein Collins High School in Spring, Texas. Logos, posters, identity work for classmates and small organizations.
When the painting practice began in 2021, Tyrannographics became the umbrella for everything: the paintings, the photography, the design work, the films, the archives.
The name is not corporate. It is territorial. A flag planted.
Influences
Painters
- Philip Guston
- Cy Twombly
- Jean-Michel Basquiat
- Keith Haring
- Mark Rothko
- Jackson Pollock
- Helen Frankenthaler
- Andy Warhol
Beyond Painting
- Aaron Draplin (design)
- Anthony Bourdain (storytelling)
- SAMO (street, anonymity)
- San Antonio (color)
- Houston (scale)
- Faith (structure)
- History (subject)
“I am drawn to the tension between the ordinary and the sacred, the beautiful and the grotesque, sincerity and absurdity. I believe these opposites can exist within the same image because they already exist within every person.”
— Rex Autry, Artist Statement