Josh Taylor
Words: Crystal Farina
Image: Josh Taylor
      
When looking at Josh Taylor’s painted abandonment of offspring, you start to feel an obligation towards them. They want something from you. Every pair of eyes urgently claims it, even though they seem vacant and unaware of their surroundings. Contrary to their coy play, they see more than we do. Every picture exploits a character's solitude, with the only additional presence being either an inanimate one of teddy bears and hand-held small castles, or the nearby and unseen destruction of mushroom clouds. Nevertheless, their existence is one that they’re eerily comfortable with.

Taylor conveniently governs his characters in a cohesive environment simply to facilitate his spontaneity. With such a brilliant population of free thoughts, you would think that Taylor possesses a specific motive, but he claims, “I don’t really try to express anything, it’s what the viewer takes from it. What other people get from it is probably better than what I could tell them it’s about.”
One year ago, Brooklyn’s Pratt graduate rejected realism and applied his illustrative training towards the tenebrous realm of Gastonia. “I like drawing characters. I did a bunch of personal characters and set them up in the world, and now everything I paint resides in that universe. I started creating a mythology around it. I don’t want to have anything set in stone. It’s sort of what’s going on in my head as I’m doing it.”

After his education, he worked for the Warwick Dispatch and Advertiser in NY. He shortly followed up with the 8-hour routine of graphic design for a real estate company, when he decided to move down to Tarpon Springs for personal art development. Although he has several clients for mostly album art and t-shirt designs, he does not allow them to dictate power over his ideas.
Although he is reticent towards any artistic reasoning, he does not hesitate to express a sense of humor for his newest creations: “I’m painting a lot of girls and worms floating around these days. Somewhere in Gastonia, there’s a pocket of the galaxy that’s inhabited by naked floating girls and worms.” What’s the significance? Oh no, don’t ask him that. It’s meant for you to decide.

Taylor has rotating art exhibits around the nation, and he has worked in the past with Brandon Dunlap for Czar’s annual “Dirty but Sophisticated” art event, as well as showcased work in the foregone Covivant Gallery of Tampa. His most recent exhibit took place in Mesa, Arizona as “The Mind’s Eye” at WINDUP Gallery. It contained mostly his new creations of Japanese cartoon acrylics and a Mind’s Eye mural on the forefront of the gallery. In October he had exhibitions in Orlando and Tampa.

To find out more about Josh and his upcoming exhibitions, check out joshtaylorart.net.