Apr 28, 2014
This week: Amanda talks to Taylor McKimens!!
Taylor McKimens was born in 1976 in Winterhaven, California and
lives and works in New York. He studied at Art Center College of
Design in Pasadena, CA. McKimens has exhibited extensively and
notably at Deitch Projects, NY, Macro Museum, Rome, The Hole, NY.
Most recent exhibitions include: Studio d'Arte Raffaeli, When
Things Get Back to Normal, Galerie Zürcher, Paris (solo 2011),
New York Minute at The Garage Center, Moscow, curated by
Kathy Grayson (2011), Spaghetti and Beachballs, curated by
Donald Baechler, Studio d'Arte Raffaelli, Trento, Italy (2011) and
Facemaker at Royal T, Los Angeles (2011).
Taylor McKimens initiates us in the suburban desert of the
contemporary American wild west, portrayed as an extended backyard
calling to be explored. Drainage ditches, weather-worn palm trees,
dusty trucks make up the playing field where young characters
embark on brave endeavors in an almost Edward Hopper-esque
solitude. McKimens is completely unperturbed by the messier side of
things and in fact revels in the drips and oozes that are the
traces of life. In one of the show's major works, Knee
Deep, the bright, acidic-colored canvas shows a young,
baseball-capped girl stymied in a ditch. McKimens creates a certain
sense of no-time as if she has always been there and will always be
there, contemplating her next move. Alternating between loose areas
of color with atmospheric gesture and dense areas of confident line
quality where even the slightest details, a fly on a shoe, a piece
of trash in a puddle, are given equal stature on the canvas.