Page 210 - Genius

tiMothy taylor

born in Philadelphia, PA, USA. lives and works in Mariana Islands, CNMI

SEARCH THE ARTIST ONLINE www.sculpture.org/timothytaylor

Timothy Taylor calls it “Experimentation with a whimsical irreverence”.
Asserting a paradox, “…rejection of cognition, matter over mind facilitates
improvisation from concept to finish” to conjure the “unpredictable object
of good luck“. In a fickle art world, known for both a love of tradition and
a certain fatigue, this sculptor muses that the creative challenge is “a
willingness to gamble in a life-game best played as if the stakes were low“.
Timothy Taylor diverted from an MFA program to attend medical school but
soon found himself welding in the garage basement early mornings before
anatomy class. The medical career never got off the ground. “The world
of medicine was equally commercial. I continued my soul searching after
med school and went to an apprenticeship at the Johnson Atelier in New
Jersey. There I was, an MD working for four bucks an hour getting dizzy
mixing mold rubber in a foundry, pondering the meaning of life. I see the
whole problem of making art freely in this worker’s society as completely
insurmountable, and I boiled the task down to this: how to create art
without falling prey to the multitude of theories and issues that lurk to
infect all the artists who simply wish to create. I realized that for me the
only way to get that satisfaction was to boldly accept my very primordial
love of fooling around in the studio as perfectly valid. As if it was right
there the whole time but it was in a blind spot that was growing bigger
and bigger with every art seminar and lecture I went to”.
The consequences of investing in art-play were humbling at first. As
economics factored into the equation, Taylor began carving from small
chunks of inexpensive material - plaster molded in a chocolate milk carton,
Styrofoam scraps, found wood, pastels… The “Fresco Forms“, pastels in
plaster painted over spontaneous shapes have a soft, elegant surface.
“Spackle Forms”, polyurethane foam coated with… yes, spackle. given
some Hungarian porcelain, Taylor cut playful shapes into small “whiffel
balls“. yet, “poverty isn’t always the rule“. The bronzes are made from
carved polystyrene painted with hot beeswax, an “aromatic” process.
And, now living on a Pacific Island, Taylor recently completed a large
cement sculpture, “Artifact”, for a deep jungle installation. Other large
installations include a giant PvC pipe conduit for ultraviolet lamps that
illuminate stage paints in a wild, “eye-popping” display. “I like to catch the
academics enjoying ‘eye candy’ while they think no-one is watching… Using
new materials doesn’t have to mean a complete rejection of time tested
values. but you will run into a little resistance from the art establishment
sometimes…”. Timothy Taylor continues in the self referential fantasy. but
this art is starting to get noticed.
 oraCLe, 2009 POrCElAIN, SlIP CAST IN kECSkEMET, HUNgAry AT THE
INTErNATIONAl CErAMICS STUDIO 3,15x3,15 IN. /8x8 CM.
 DiLemma, 2001 brONZE 5x4 IN. /12,5x10 CM.
Lamp, 2004 PvC AND Uv lAMP INSTAllATION 12x12 FT. /36,5x36,5 M. 
UntitLeD, 2009 POrCElAIN, SlIP CAST 3,15x3,15 IN. /8x8 CM. 
FresCo Form, 2009 PASTElS IN PlASTEr ON POlySTyrENE FOAM 6x6 IN. /15x15 CM. 
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