Isaiah Tate staged his triumphant return in the form of a one-night pop-up exhibition with the promise of more to come

 

Some nights feel too New York to be true; moments when life feels like a movie and you’ve been lucky enough to wander onto the set. I had a flash of that feeling standing face-to-face with Fat Albert in a Chelsea loft turned pop-up gallery with my friend Donavan, who’d heard about the show through word of mouth. I was sans glasses that evening, but Albert stared at me unblinking from behind his gold and white Cartier frames. 

 

 

The frames hold special significance for the (Alaska-born) Detroit-raised artist, Isaiah Tate, who painted all 9 works featured in the “Flowers” show and designed the curated Detroit Kids merchandise on sale at the event. In addition to logo hats and tees that read “from Detroit with love” there were bowling shirts with hem-to-hem images of Detroiters like Anita Baker, Stevie Wonder, and Barry Sanders. 

 

“I made everything here,” Tate explained when I asked him about his pixelated twin images of Mike Tyson, one in color and one in black and white. “Every shade of gray you see, I mixed it.” He detailed the labor of creating a grid on the canvas to ensure each pixel was distinct. When I asked if he used painter’s tape for the lines he laughed, noting that anyone who’s done a paint job knows that tape won’t give you a clean enough line. I trust him, Tate paints for a living and my walls are as white as they were the day I moved in.

 

Refreshingly, Tate is not the product of art school, or at least not visual art. He attended Rutgers as a Theatre Arts major which is where he met his fiancee, Amanda, a NJ-native who works in PR. He gained his knowledge of color and precision painting from his grandfather who painted on a different kind of canvas, houses and murals. When you consider the number of custom-mixed colors and his consistency within a series, like his pixelated Muhammad Ali triptych, the technical difficulty of his process intimidates. 

 

 

The “Flowers” exhibition represents the end of a seven year hiatus during which Tate gave up believing in himself and his art, but he’s happy to be back. He wrote on Instagram, “Flowers is about planting seeds, watering them, and having the patience to see them bloom. It mirrors my own growth — how every lesson, every stumble, every moment of faith has shaped me into who I am today.” During his thank you speech, he dedicated a poignant shout-out to his fiancee for their “unstoppable connection” and for co-producing the pop-up.

 

Speaking with Tate just after his speech, he was passionate. Tate speaks with his hands, landing his fist onto his palm or gesturing with interlaced fingers to punctuate a point. He showed me the tattoo on his ring finger, an anchor on his first knuckle. Though it was our first time meeting, even I was convinced of his renewed sense of purpose and motivation when he talked about what’s next. Without going into too many details, he described “big ideas” for “big walls” and navigating interest from celebrities. I can see the vision. It’s not difficult to imagine the Tyson diptych or the Ali triptych in a professional athlete’s TV room, or the Fat Albert pieces in a Philly entrepreneur’s man cave. Tate’s work pops: it’s punchy and exciting, technically difficult, and each one is a cultural conversation starter. (The Tyson piece is titled with the acronym MTBTTF, an IYKYK-reference or inside joke for hip-hop heads.) 

 

 

As the hours wound down, I made my way up to the loft space and munched on empanadas. The venue rental was time-bound and the clock was ticking. I watched a team of Tate’s friends remove the paintings from the wall, wrap each one with a roll of black plastic, and carry the canvases out to the elevator. In a New York minute, it was as if the pop-up had been all in my imagination, a collective dream. I rescued as many empanadas as I could fit in a shopping bag and headed for the exit, glad to be able to say “I knew him when…”.  

  

blacklove 🖤 and starlight 🌟 

 

Flowers was a one night only solo exhibition on October 4, 2025 at Studio 260 in Chelsea. The show was co-produced by Isaiah Tate and Detroit Kids and featured 9 paintings. You can follow Isaiah on Instagram to learn more about his work or to be notified of merchandise drops at @bigbanktate and @statefairny.