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

>Left: “Requiem.” Right: detail. Acrylic and mixed media on wood, 2011

Gird your loins, ladies and gentlemen, for it’s time to announce the next in a long line of exciting events: ONE x ONE x ONE. Presented by Three Sixty Project, ONE x ONE x ONE is a philanthropic traveling art exhibition developed with the aim of benefitting underdeveloped youth communities the world over. To that end, 55 unique skateboard decks will tour the east coast of Australia, making stops in Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast. Proceeds from the sale of these decks will help fund various area-specific youth community projects.

Falling under the category of ‘local artists,’ the deck I made will be part of the Melbourne specific exhibition held at No Vacancy Gallery on Tuesday, 18 October.

The artwork for this deck was created as a companion piece to “Reckoning,” which had been on display at Thousand Pound Bend from 21-26 September as part of Just Another Group Show. The pieces represent the different processes by which we handle our sources of angst and discomfort; there is resistance, and there is acceptance.  This piece is about letting go the slippery beast of suffering and allowing oneself to accept their reality.

I’ve got a satisfyingly large piece in the upcoming Just Another Group Show in conjunction with Semi-Permanent. All the info above. Come see!

Last Thursday’s ILL-Logic street exhibition was both a tremendous personal milestone and also one hell of a street party. With the support of Shaun Hossack and Juddy Roller I was provided with an opportunity to achieve a whole new level of artistry, taking my work off of the page and into a new plane of existence. Over the course of three weeks a bland, tag-scrawled brick wall became a hiding spot for a gang of mischievous schoolboys with homemade weapons and a predatory spirit, while the passive non-participant sits alone, shrouded in his own guilt by association.

You can find a brief recap along with some photos over at Acclaim Magazine. Additional event and process photos can be found on any number of Facebook photo albums courtesy of ILL-Logic, Juddy Roller, Pippa Dodds, and Daniel Green.