Craig Taylor
Head
June 3 – July 15, 2017
Artist Reception: Saturday, June 3, 2017, 4 – 7 p.m.
CB1 Gallery is pleased to present our third exhibition of the work of New York artist Craig Taylor. The exhibition titled Head defines the images in terms of seriality, this new collection of works on paper show how the variant image of a head, can be cross pollinated in one medium and eventually fed into another. The exhibition will be on view from June 3 through July 15, 2017. The gallery will host a reception for the artist on Saturday, June 3 from 4 – 7 p.m.
Craig Taylor continues to investigate motifs in the shape of a head. Built out of layered systems of mark making, the abstract lines are saliently grafted onto the head-like form so as to capture the transformation of pictorial order. The exhibition consists of 6 paintings on paper and 6 intaglio mono-prints. Evident in the work is the fluidity of a back and forth between mediums. At times the images are nearly descriptive in terms of illusionism but they quickly traverse back to flatness. Lines, globules, dashes, and streaks occupy the figure as if it’s defaced with a mischievous eccentric writing. Pulsating lines operate like a congealed EEG test across the entirety of the form.
As a process, the marks fill up the space while they also describe the space they are filling. In the paintings on paper, the space can have an immediacy that is monumentally intimate. Discordant colors embody the HEAD (variant)–country club green, bright red, deep luminous yellow, and peacock blue, sit in relation to shades of muted green. The marks are fluid and blobby but the HEAD (variant) creates an original within the possible fixed matrix. Color and line converge to create the inside and outside at the same time. The form can be at once your existential-self or maybe something as uncanny as a monstrous topiary blooming before the eyes. This work is in a constant battle between verb and noun. Predicated on the hope of creating an experience that is unique to two-dimensional space.
The intaglio mono-prints are a result of Craig Taylor’s third collaboration with Jennifer Melby Editions, Brooklyn, NY.
Craig Taylor received his BFA from Maine College of Art and his MFA from Yale University. In addition to his previous CB1 Gallery exhibition, he has had solo shows at Sue Scott Gallery and March Gallery in New York, La Montagne in Boston, and Test: Showroom, Berlin. Taylor has been included in numerous group exhibitions at various galleries among them CTRL Gallery, Houston, Texas; 106 Greene, Brooklyn, New York; Bakalar and Paine Galleries, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, and Fred [London], Leipzig. Taylor is an Assistant Professor of painting at the Rhode Island School of Design and has previously taught at Massachusetts College of Art, Pratt, Brandeis University, and Yale University. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.