You will inevitably confront social forces. In conversation, he offers it up with panache: “Henry THE EIGHTH!” he exclaims, brandishing a cigarette as if it were punctuation. The youngest of eight children born to a house painter and a domestic worker living in Oxnard, Taylor likes to refer to himself as “Henry the Eighth.” Like many Taylor portraits, it touches on multiple themes: the legacies of British painting and the politics of representation. It was inspired by a recent trip to England, when he spent a spell making work in the countryside. The painting shows the artist in profile, his left hand effetely raised. In a wry and elegant self-portrait painted last year, Taylor renders himself in royal robes, modeling a 400-year-old portrait of King Henry V of England that hangs at the National Portrait Gallery in London. In another, he scrutinizes Epic, his 2-year-old daughter with artist Liz Glynn, as she sits in a high chair - green peas dotting her bowl and the floor. In a 2015 canvas titled “i’m yours,” he carries the gaze of a worried parent as he stands in the company of his older children, Jade and Noah. The Los Angeles painter, who is 64, makes regular appearances in his own work. The best depictions of Taylor, however, are self-portraits. Ideas come so quickly that he cuts them off with a refrain, “Know what I mean?” Hamza Walker, a curator who has known Taylor for a decade, says that if he were to create a portrait of the artist, he too would start with his words: “‘Know What I Mean’ - that’s what I would call my portrait of Henry.” Taylor’s conversation can meander from Philip Guston‘s late work to that time he met Bob Marley backstage at a concert. Of 20th century abstractionist James Jarvaise and comic book artists Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, he declares: “Those motherf- can draw!” Taylor gets gravelly when he wants to confide but can pierce a crowded room with a roaring “Girl! What’s UP!?!” Words are drawn out for impact and expletives dispensed as tokens of admiration. My portrait of Taylor would start with his voice and its cadences. If you were to paint a portrait of Henry Taylor, you might start with his smile: brilliant, devilish, inhabiting both the mouth and the eyes.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |