In his witty new paintings, Brooklyn painter Craig Taylor empties traditional portrait bust forms of facial detail and fills the silhouettes with strata of small marks and brushstrokes. The effect is to make visible the unarticulated anxiety behind our carefully crafted facades.
[Image at top: Craig Taylor, Self-Portrait of Nobody, 2014, oil on canvas, 80 x 60 inches.]
Craig Taylor, Figment of the Things, 2014, oil on canvas, 72 x 54 inches.
Craig Taylor, The Last Chapter to a New Monument, 2015, oil on canvas, 54″ x 72″
Craig Taylor, Internal Friction Stacked, 2014, oil on canvas, 72 x 54 inches.
Craig Taylor at CB1, installation view in CB1’s beautiful new space. All images courtesy of CB1.
Taylor cites Romanticism, atmospheric
landscape
painting, Hieratic Heads, Etruscan Cippi, and comic books as touchstones
for his large-scale, anthropomorphic imagery. Looking at the paintings, I think of bits and bytes: the intricate code that is hidden beneath our user-friendly operating
systems.
landscape
painting, Hieratic Heads, Etruscan Cippi, and comic books as touchstones
for his large-scale, anthropomorphic imagery. Looking at the paintings, I think of bits and bytes: the intricate code that is hidden beneath our user-friendly operating
systems.
“Craig Taylor: Enface,” CB1 Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. Through April 11, 2015
Related posts:
Craig Taylor: Reviving pentimenti (2011)
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The paintings make me think of Jean Dubuffet without eyes, mouth, nose or ears.
Taylor's bits of color and brush strokes, perhaps even his choice of color remind me of Xi Zhang's painting style (one of his styles that is)
great images! Can't wait to see them in person. He is one of the most interesting colorist
nice work