Through Tyré’s Eyes

Tyré Nichols’ legacy continues through a photography show and beyond.

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On drives, walks, and bike rides through Memphis, Tyré Nichols brought his camera. “Photography helps me look at the world in a more creative way,” he wrote on his website. “It expresses me in ways I cannot write down for people.”

He had described Memphis as beautiful to his older sister, Keyana Dixon — from the bridges over the Mississippi River to the trails in Shelby Farms Park. He had moved here from Sacramento, California, for a FedEx job before the pandemic. Something about Memphis made him pick up his camera again, a hobby he’d started when he was a young skateboarder, wanting to document his tricks. “He was like, one day I’m [going to be] in a gallery or something,” Dixon says.

But on January 7, 2023, when he was two minutes away from his home, the 29-year-old photographer was injured by five police officers during a traffic stop. They punched, kicked, pepper-sprayed, and struck him with a baton, all captured on police and surveillance footage. Nichols’ camera was in the car that day, yet it and his phone were wiped clean, his last photos unknown. He died three days later from his injuries.

As anyone in her position would, Dixon says, “I never thought my brother would be a victim of police brutality.” With a background in criminal justice, she knew her family would not only have to wade through the overwhelming grief but also the justice system, the state trials, the federal trials, the civil lawsuit, and the press to navigate. 

“My family and I kept saying, ‘Once this is over, once this is over, once this is over, we’ll be able to do X, Y, Z. We’ll be able to grieve.’”

Even now, two years later, it’s not “over.” Two of the former officers pleaded guilty in both state and federal court, while three were acquitted by a state jury earlier this year and await federal sentencing. The civil trial date has been set for 2026.

Yet today, Dixon has been able to shift her focus to happier memories of her brother, away from his final, tragic moments. She’s been able to fulfill his dream of having a gallery show, though posthumously. “This was the perfect time,” she says. “I didn’t want to have this beautiful moment overshadowed by court dates and ugly and sick images and videos of my brother.”

Since June 24th, several of Nichols’ photographs are on display in the Jay Etkin Gallery in Cooper-Young, in an exhibition called “Tyré Nichols: Photographic Legacy.” Etkin is a friend of Nichols and Dixon’s stepfather.

“This exhibition isn’t just a tribute to Tyré’s life — it’s a platform for his voice as an artist, for his vision,” Etkin says. “We want people to experience what he saw, to witness his sensitivity, his humor, his eye for beauty. It’s a chance to know Tyré not through tragedy or headlines — but through his own lens, through Tyré’s eyes.”

“Some of his compositions — offbeat, intimate, even a little surreal — remind me of William Eggleston. There’s that same instinct to elevate the overlooked, to find meaning in the everyday. But Tyré’s point of view was all his own. His images carry a rhythm that feels deeply personal.” — Jay Etkin

The photographs include those seen on his website and ones that have been pulled from Nichols’ camera, yet unseen by the public and even by his family. In the weeks immediately following his death, Dixon recalls, The New York Times and our sister publication, the Memphis Flyer, publicized her brother’s photography, pulling images from the internet — “which is fine,” she says. But seeing his work in the gallery, “it was different. … It’s something that makes me feel like his life meant something. I would sit with Jay in his studio, and people were just walking in and they were drawn to his wall. I think it’s the picture of this black roof — that’s my favorite picture. And they were talking and asking questions.

“That gave me a sense of peace,” she continues, “like people are going to know who you are, not just for the tragedy of what happened to you, but the beauty that people were talking about, comparing him to some artists, like some cool artists. And I was laughing because I have an inside joke with him, like you’re some Picasso dude or something, in my head. For me, it gives me a lot of joy.”

Dixon was always a supporter of Nichols’ photography, even when he doubted his own work. “I’m always telling him, ‘Dude, this stuff is cool. This stuff is great.’” He even took her wedding photos in 2016. “Now that I look back on all the pictures — I thought they were beautiful when I got them — but they have a different meaning to me now because he’s really good at this stuff,” she says.

Even Etkin, who never met Nichols, admits, “He’s made me look at photography differently.”

“Some of his compositions — offbeat, intimate, even a little surreal — remind me of William Eggleston,” he says. “There’s that same instinct to elevate the overlooked, to find meaning in the everyday. But Tyré’s point of view was all his own. His images carry a rhythm that feels deeply personal. … There’s an almost dreamlike cinematic quality to many of his images.”

Nichols found “poetry in the ordinary,” Etkin adds — in the landscapes of Memphis, in its overpasses, skies, waters, and buildings.

Because of this, Dixon, who has since moved to Memphis from California following her brother’s death, sees her brother’s memory throughout the city he once called beautiful. “It’s kind of different every day,” she says. “When I see police officers, I get weirded out. When I see ambulances, I get worried. But I do find it to be a concrete jungle of beautifulness. Everywhere I go, he’s taken pictures. He’s taken pictures of Beale Street. He’s taken pictures of Tom Lee Park. Everywhere I go, I’m reminded of him. If you go down Jackson, there’s a mural of him. Sometimes, I smile. Sometimes, I’m sad.”

Sometimes, she takes her own photos of flowers, of the sunset like her brother would at Tom Lee Park. “I suck so bad,” she laughs. Her own kids poke fun.

But Dixon doesn’t want to be the only one who remembers Nichols to see him in the fabric of the city, so she started the Tyré Nichols Foundation to share his bright legacy for future generations. Two goals she hopes to achieve include offering creative arts scholarships and photography workshops for youths.

“My brother was always creative,” Dixon says, “but he didn’t have so many resources, you know? So I hope to do this; even though it sounds really small, I can do so much just with those great things. … I know I can’t fix everything in every household, but to be able to give something that’s meaningful in honor of my brother, I can actually create the narrative myself.”

At this, Dixon remembers Nichols when he was little. “I had just bought a notebook,” she says. Eleven years younger, the baby of the family, he was tearing out the pages of her notebook and balling up her paper. He told her, “I’m making my own world.”

“I was like, ‘With all my papers, though?’” she says. “He’s like, ‘Well, it’s a deep world. You need a wristband to get in here.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, okay.’ I was pretty mad at him, but I never was mad at him for too long.”

It’s a memory that reminds her of a child’s curiosity, the need to create without fear, without shame, only imagination. “There’s different spaces that I want to help the kids,” Dixon says now, photography being one.

At the end of August, the Tyré Nichols Foundation, in partnership with Jay Etkin’s nonprofit FLoW Museum of Art & Culture and the National Civil Rights Museum, will host a “Through His Eyes” fundraiser. This event will feature more of Nichols’ photography in addition to a local community art showcase inspired by Nichols’ passion for photography, skateboarding, and sunsets. David Yancy III, who painted the mural on Jackson, will do a live painting. Works will be auctioned.

“Things like this happen way too often — that there’s someone killed by the police,” Dixon says. “And then five years later, nobody cares to remember them, so I hope that this will give him a lasting presence here in Memphis long after I’m gone, long after everything.”