Henry Taylor
Untitled
Los Angeles-based painter Henry Taylor is voracious and eclectic in his sourcing of subjects. From revered cultural icons to strangers scouted on the street, Taylor’s individual renderings are the thread with which the artist weaves a cultural narrative of contemporary American life and those who live it.
This ‘hunting and gathering,’ as he defines it, is above all an active process—one in which Taylor often mines his own history and experiences. In the artist’s studio, newspaper clippings and historical photographs of prominent civil rights figures and iconic athletes sit alongside Taylor’s snapshots of people both strange and familiar to him.
‘It’s important to take chances in painting, it doesn’t hurt you. My fear is not taking chances; I want to take chances always. I don’t want to look at something and say, ‘woulda, shoulda, coulda.’ It’s like telling someone, ‘I love you,’ those are just words, but I had to say it. Sometimes you just gotta paint it.’—Henry Taylor [1]
In ‘Untitled’ (2021), Taylor captures a woman seated outdoors in a wooden chair. Painted during his tenure at Hauser & Wirth Southampton, the figure faces forward, toward the viewer, her back against the angled corner of the slatted seat. Greenery rises behind her, contrasting with the warm golden yellows of her clothing. A narrow strip of hazy blue sky frames the top of the painting. Taylor gives the figure a pensive, serene expression, imbuing his subject with specificity and personality. The intensity and vivacity with which the artist paints is reflected in his brushwork—a network of alternatingly soft and kinetic strokes that capture a fleeting moment, alive with the intimacy characteristic of Taylor’s painting.
‘When you start to think about people, you start to think about the truth. ’—Taylor [2]
Henry Taylor’s imprint on the American cultural landscape comes from his disruption of tradition. While people figure prominently in Taylor’s work, he rejects the label of portraitist. Taylor’s chosen subjects are only one piece of the larger cultural narrative that they represent: his paintings reveal the forces at play, both individualistic and societal, that come to bear on his subject. The end result is not a mere idealized image, but a complete narrative of a person and his history. Taylor explains this pursuit of representational truth: ‘It’s about respect, because I respect these people. It’s a two-dimensional surface, but they are really three-dimensional beings.’ [3]