WHATIFTHEWORLD / GALLERY / FEATURED ARTISTS

Michael Taylor

Michael is a South African artist who was born in 1979 and grew up in Johannesburg. After matriculating in 1997 he moved to the Western Cape to study Visual Communication design at Stellenbosch University. Immediately after graduating in 2001 he entered a postgraduate Masters Degree programme at the same department – his research focussed on image interpretation and semiotic studies for visual art. In 2003 he began lecturing in Visual Communication at Stellenbosch University and also started partaking in exhibitions in the Cape Town region. He attained his MA in Visual Art in 2006 (Cum Laude) and has been working as a professional artist since then. He also holds a part-time lecturing post at Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography, teaching Illustration and Design Discourse. Michael lives and works in Cape Town.

Artist Statement

My work can be described as ironic, illustrative, and self-reflexive pictures. I draw and paint; depicting, what I consider to be, a dialogue between personal and cultural knowledge – themes and narratives that inform our everyday thinking. These interpretations, illustrations of course, are fundamentally concerned with image-text paradigms – the subtleties between visual thoughts and language. I look at these relationships, particularly the interplay between an image and its adjoined title, as concepts for my work.

I regard a picture’s title as the viewer’s accepted entry-point to significance – they are allegorical devices to make viewers believe more than is necessarily true about what is portrayed. Generally, I choose titles which evoke something entirely different from what the image represents, or, I employ titles to reveal characteristics that are not obvious about the subject. This deliberate juxtaposing of image and text is aimed to address the viewer’s understanding of the relationship between a representation and its accompanying title, as well as, signification as a result of multiple texts (because both the image and the title induce their own set of relative texts and contexts), and also, the viewer’s familiarity and employment of visual narrative codes in order to construe visual events.

On the other hand, when looking at the image-making process, the picture’s presence and performance is still my main concern. I like to believe that an artist’s process, both the conceptual and active sides thereof, is as much a narrative as what the image’s subject would depict. What I try and find in the processes of drawing and painting is a parallel between abstraction and illustration – how does a style turn into a narrative? My approach to drawing is not something overly-precious, and certainly not reserved. I’m very interested in finding out what the drawings want for themselves, and only through an immediate approach to drawing and visual storytelling do I find that this happens. I also think that it’s restrictive to work purely observational: as an illustrator, someone who is constantly exercising narrative, I find it rewarding to draw from memory.

My work’s subject deals with the “burden of reading things the right way”. Just as I try and uncover things about the drawing process and its “narrative”, I intend that my images insinuate hidden agendas and peculiar truths about modern people and social stereotypes. The idea of “recognition through ambiguity” / “confronting by covering-up” / “defacement through disguise” is something I intentionally inject into my work. But it’s not my intention to be political or “culturally conscious”, even though it filters through the work; by means of irony, symbolism etc. I am always interested in working with humour and ridicule, ways of communicating that are disarming, and those aspects pointing to being simply human – elements that will make the viewer become aware of themselves when reading the image.

Solo Exhibitions

2009 July: The Plot Thickens - WorldArt Gallery, Cape Town
May: Art Amsterdam (João Ferreira Gallery), Amsterdam
2007 September: Nocturnes - Whatiftheworld Gallery, Cape Town
2006 June: Who framed Michael Taylor? - Whatiftheworld Gallery, Cape Town
January: Title Sequence - US Gallery, Stellenbosch

Selected Exhibitions

Nocturnes - Solo show at Whatiftheworld / Gallery, Woodstock, Cape Town (2007)
Am I a Painter - Group show at ArtB Gallery, Bellville (2007)
Paper and Me - Group show at Association for Visual Arts, Cape Town (2007)
Who Framed Michael Taylor - Solo show at Whatiftheworld, Cape Town (2006)
The most exciting drawing show ever - Group show at the KKNK, Oudtshoorn (2006)
Title Sequence _Group show at US Gallery, Stellenbosch (2006)
ABSA L’Atelier Awards - National Exhibition at ABSA Gallery, Johannesburg (2004)
ABSA L’Atelier Awards - Regional Exhibition at ArtB Gallery, Bellville (2004)

Awards

Winner: 9th International Competition of Illustration Teatrio Venice, Chioggia (Italy) (2003)
Finalist (with special mention): 8th International Competition of Illustration Teatrio Venice, Chioggia (Italy) (2002)

Publications