I was happy to contribute my piece ‘Bust’ to be exhibited in a small group show at FFDG in San Francisco, which opened this past Friday. I couldn’t be there, but my good friend Heather Tompkins was kind enough to scout it out and take a few snaps for me.

I also got a last minute opportunity to high tail it down to Miami for this year’s Art Basel, my first time participating in such an event. While there I was able to toss together a collaboration with friend, talented stencil artist and fellow Raleigh-dweller Mathew Curran in a carpark in the heavily saturated Wynwood Arts District. There are some snaps of the process on my Instagram. More photos to come.

Part of this change has involved phasing out my old website – which has stagnated for so long it’s starting to attract mosquitoes – and phasing in the brand new taylurk.com. I’m really excited as this will be the first fully streamlined web content system I’ve had since the advent of my internet presence in 2007. You can see updates of my work here and on my behance profile.

Below is the video from my solo show Base Nature which opened back in August to great success.

Base Nature Opening Night from Just Another Agency on Vimeo.

Thanks for following and I look forward to more exciting updates as things start to fall back into place!

xx Taylor

Check the teaser below. I hope to see you there!

Base Nature by Taylor White Preview from Just Another Agency on Vimeo.

If we consider consciousness as a river in constant flow through a static channel (say, the body,) then to say something IS – to ascribe permanent attributes to it – is to attempt to freeze the flow, to turn the river to ice; to trap a moment in time and perceive it as autonomous and enduring. When, in fact, that perception is merely an echo of something that only once, briefly, was. In the sense of ourselves, an ‘identity’ is but a spectral formation made up of past consciousness and future expectation. It is static electricity. It’s white noise.

It’s in our base nature to simplify things by packaging certain pieces of data and making ‘entities’ of them, and then to conclude that those entities are fixed in place. We have structured our comprehension such that every description of events in space involves the use of a rigid body to which those events have to be referred. This is language, this is math, this is science, this is philosophy. Were it not for these reference points, were we forced to perceive the world as a whirlwind of atoms that is never the same even for a fraction of a second, we would lose all notion of what is. The prospect is, at best, baffling; at worst, terrifying.

I think, though, that the creation of – and stringent adherence to – these reference points is directly related to the suffering we endure and that which we inflict on others. This is especially true when it comes to the ‘I,’ ‘Me,’ ‘Self.’ Our identity, our perceived status in life, is so deeply rooted that it constantly influences our interactions with others. The least slight to that image is unbearable, whereas the same qualifier applied to someone else would yield no reaction. If we have a strong image of ourselves, we are in constant search for fortification of that image by others, to see it universally recognized and accepted. Nothing is more painful than to see our self-image opened up to doubt, and indeed nothing is so capable of ruining a good time like the negative emotional choke hold such doubt will yield.

It is the disturbing emotions that will cloud and distort our perception of reality. The emotions make us believe that beauty or ugliness is inherent in people and things, even though it is the mind that decides whether things are attractive or repulsive. We are repelled by things that threaten our sense of self, and attracted to those that fortify it, but it is our mind – not innate attributes – that drive these attractions. We forge bonds and fight battles with people and objects as we perceive them to be, and it is our attachment to these perceptions that drag us further and further from reality and into the vicissitude of attraction and aversion that these mental imputations relentlessly perpetuate. From this, savage beasts are born.

Just Another Agency has a great spot at Art Melbourne this weekend at the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton. Some of my drawings are up for sale, as are many other tremendous works of art. A handful of pieces have already been sold, but the fair is on all weekend so grab your poncho and canoe and paddle on down to Carlton Gardens. It’s a great way to escape this incredible rain!

Hi, readers. I’ll just go ahead and skip the part where I fill you in on why I haven’t posted an update in a coon’s age, and instead move right into what I’ve been up to since last we spoke. Short answer: a lot.

I’m back in Melbourne with a vengeance. I’ve enrolled in a course at RMIT to enable me to stay in the country, which mostly just absorbs all of my time and occasionally teaches me a thing or two about digital media. Meanwhile I’ve been keeping terribly busy making new projects to share with you all and keep us spiritually fed.

Recently I participated in a new exhibition ‘Brickwall’ at the ever-evolving outdoor contemporary art establishment Juddy Roller. The space has really grown something fierce in the last several months, and I’m always excited to be a part of whatever new art endeavors the proprietor Shaun comes up with. This show features a veritable grab bag of talent in areas of street and contemporary art and will be rotated on a daily basis, so if you live in the area it’s recommended you go for a coffee at Juddy Roller at least several times a week.

I’ve also had the privilege of contributing to the project Melbourne Underground at Emerald House carpark in South Melb, happening this weekend. Here is a prime opportunity for a “who, me??” moment, as this carpark has been dubbed Australia’s largest private exhibition of graffiti art and features some of the most renowned local and international artists. I myself am not a graffiti artist; I don’t even identify as a street artist, though I do put work up outdoors on occasion. The art I make aims to transcend context, instead deriving its relevance from within itself, whenever and wherever it may occur – be that indoors, outdoors, in physical space or digital space, within the dimensions of a canvas or the sprawling surfaces of an urban setting. That said, to be counted among the some of greatest and most interesting artists around – street or otherwise – is a real honor.

Coming up… a new tabletop for Juddy Roller cafe, Some yet-to-be-produced work at Art Melbourne with Just Another Agency, this year’s ILL-logic, a few private commissions, and so on and so forth! Inhale. Exhale.

I’m also re-designing and re-constructing this website just as soon as I learn how. It’s about time.

Meanwhile, Facebook or Twitter me for updates and other bric-a-brac.

Love to you all xx

Friends,

I’m writing to you from an airplane hovering somewhere between LAX and Dallas/Fort Worth, disoriented and offensively malodorous, to let you know that I’ll be away from my base station for a while so there will be significant delays in filling print orders until February 2012. It’s admittedly ill timed considering the relative newness of my online entrepreneurial efforts but the Australian government begs that I leave the country for a significant amount of time in order to gain new entry as a student next year. Any orders placed from now until the end of January will be filled, signed and mailed when I return to Australia.

My sincerest apologies for any inconvenience, impatience or general dissatisfaction this may cause. Meanwhile, here’s a festive holiday drawing recycled from last year.

Love to you all, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

xx Taylor

I’m happy to announce, ladies and gents, that I’ve finally opened up my online store after months of fiercely committed lollygagging. It feels good! The first orders have been retrieved, signed, and prepared for shipping, and I could scarcely be more excited.

I do print cycles on a weekly basis and retrieve, package and ship them by hand so wait times will vary depending on which day of the week you order them. I’m always available via email if you find yourself with any specific inquiries, comments or requests.

Also, you can find a fair few informative, miscellaneous updates over on Facebook.

There’s a great exhibition going on right now at NGV Studio in Melbourne, of which I am privileged to be a part. ‘Board’ explores the evolution of deck graphics and design with a display of work from emerging artists throughout Australia, shown alongside some insanely cool decks, hardware and ephemera from decades past. From the NGV Studio website:

Presenting 1970s & 80s skateboards and ephemera from Tony Hallam’s collection alongside decks created for the exhibition by 50 Australian artists, it explores the evolution of board graphics and design. 



Senior Curator of Contemporary Art Alex Baker states: ‘Tony Hallam’s collection digs deep into the formative years of skate culture during which board graphics evolved from simple lettering to elaborate artwork. Once a professional skateboarder, Hallam has gone to painstaking lengths to track down some of the most important boards in history. On view at NGV Studio are gems such as Tony Hawk’s first signature model (1982) and an early Zephyr board (mid-1970s) personally owned by skateboard legend Stacy Peralta. The selection of skateboards and ephemera in Board allows an insight into skateboarding’s surfing roots through to its cross-fertilisation with punk rock and other renegade sub-cultures. Hallam’s is considered one of the most comprehensive skateboard collections in the world, and the NGV is honoured to present it to both avid skate fans and non-initiates alike. This is an important lesson in another form of art history – one that speaks a language that originated on the streets and is ongoing today.’



Following a recent philosophical dive into the combined states of physical and mental vulnerability I wound up with an image of a dissected boy, his bone, muscle and sinew cracked and exposed. I took advantage of the color and striated surface texture of the deck I was given (it was a red one) and built up the image using ever so thin applications of black, white and transparent yellow acrylic, interspersed with layers of semi-gloss gel to enhance the depth and color and give it an attractive sheen.

See the whole damn thing at NGV Studio in Federation Square from now til 5 February 2012.

I had done this “Cowboys and Indians” set for my Every Nice Thing exhibition back in May, but they haven’t seen the light of day for a while because I had felt like the end product lacked a certain amount of enthusiasm. It always left me with a sense of unease – like I’d been paying unnecessary neglect to a couple of benignly flawed relatives – and I’d always hoped I’d be able to pull them from the ashes one day or another. Over the years I’ve acquired a backlog of unfinished ideas, rejected sketches, and unsatisfactory finished work, and I’ve found that despite the urge to trash everything I don’t like, it’s always good to hang on to the old stuff so that it can be recycled later. Here’s a perfectly good example.

Over the weekend I wanted to do some experiments with displacement mapping in Photoshop and needed some source material. After a couple of hours, a bit of tinkering with layer masks and color adjustments, the story of these two estranged playmates can finally be told.

>Cowboys & Indians No. 1. 9 x 14.5 inches @300 dpi, 2011

>Cowboys & Indians No. 2. 9 x 14.5 inches @300 dpi, 2011