Tommy Taylor + bio | statement | press
My recent reflection on the conflicting desires, drives, meanings, and logics that confounded me as a child has shown me that, while today I am better able to grasp the many layers on which that conflict plays out, it is still just as characteristic of my adult experience as it was of my childhood. In my current paintings, I give expression to this by making images that display the paradoxical combination of meaningfulness and incoherence that is typical of an experience. I do this by placing visual elements that are hard to understand side-by-side. These forms include images of ‘real’ life from photographs, magazines, film stills and direct observation; symbolic images like cartoons and drawings; and marks that include lines and basic shapes. I bring these elements into the space of the painting in an intentionally chaotic and confusing way, by deploying the traditional visual cues and logic of painting against itself. As a result, I am thwarting the viewer’s attempt at finding a coherent, consistent visual reading of the painting. Produced in this way, the elements dissolve into and compete with each other, as our drives, histories, expectations, accepted social norms, and other elements do in our lived experience. As a result, the elements and the paintings as a whole both lose and gain meaning and structure on their own. They confront the viewer with an actual experience versus a depiction of the experience. These works are challenging, defying, and inviting the viewer all at once