Henry Taylor: B Side
Oct 4, 2023–Jan 28, 2024
Gettin it done
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After graduating from CalArts in 1995, Taylor first moved to downtown Los Angeles, where he nurtured a significant rapport with his neighbors. Taylor's depictions of friends, local personalities, and passers-by are joined by street scenes inspired by his global travels. The result is a gallery of his extended community, which he commemorates in images that capture each subject's humanity and personality.
Untitled (Grill Painted on Cardboard)
Henry Taylor, Untitled (Grill Painted on Cardboard), n.d. Acrylic and graphite on cardboard box, 4 1/2 × 2 3/4 × 1 in. (11.4 × 7 × 2.5 cm). Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. © Henry Taylor. Photograph by Makenzie Goodman
In the early 1990s, Taylor began treating commonplace items like cigarette cartons, butter containers, and cereal boxes as painting surfaces. Often he would trade these works with fellow artists or sell them to his neighbors. Executed quickly, these small-scale, painted objects function like sketches, providing an inexpensive way for Taylor to work out compositional and thematic ideas and to experiment with language, text, and abstraction.