WHATIFTHEWORLD is delighted to announce its debut at the Dallas Art Fair with a solo presentation of new paintings by Michael Taylor.

Selected works on display at BOOTH C6

Michael Taylor harnesses the immediacy and expansiveness of drawing to shape the scenes and characters in his paintings. Stripped of its purely observational role, drawing becomes an intuitive act—an interplay of memory, imagination, and instinct. Within Taylor’s work, representational and figurative elements provide a narrative foundation, gradually unraveled through abstract gestures. These loosely woven storylines are anchored by evocative titles that suggest postures, mannerisms, and social codes, sparking moments of recognition within chronicles of masculinity, camp theatricality, personal and cultural mythology, and the flawed grandeur of human nature.

Although executed in traditional mediums, Taylor’s paintings embody the restless energy of drawing—exploratory, impermanent, and constantly shifting. Rather than layering paint in a conventional manner, he treats the medium with the fluidity of charcoal, smudging, erasing, and reworking forms as they emerge and recede. This continual revision mirrors the theatricality of his work, where nothing is fixed, and everything remains open to transformation.

Taylor describes certain elements within his compositions as “Prop Paintings”—objects that resist stillness, behaving instead like theatrical props imbued with implied action. These elements recall stage scenery, awaiting performers to animate them, or remnants of past scenes, still carrying traces of prior movement. Through the titles, acting almost as stage directions, the props themselves have become the performers—objects and forms taking on their own figurative presence, assuming roles within an abstract, shifting narrative. A suitcase and an apple enter into a folie-à-deux in Cocktail Suitcase, while a human-scale retro telephone looms like an enigmatic protagonist in The Burning Question. These objects are no longer just markers within the scene; they have become characters, actors within Taylor’s fragmented, theatrical world.

The tension between presence and absence is central to Taylor’s practice. His process of layering and erasure echoes the way a stage is continually reset—no mark is entirely erased, but rather transformed. The painting’s surface retains the history of its making, with each trace acting as a ghost of prior decisions. This approach to abstraction resists full definition, allowing figures and forms to hover at the edge of recognition.

At their core, these works are about navigation—of space, form, and process. Rather than dictating a singular interpretation, they invite the viewer into a world of shifting perspectives. Like stage props, they wait to be activated, engaged with, and reconsidered upon each encounter. Taylor’s abstraction is not about resolution but about the continuous act of discovery—an ongoing performance where erasure is as vital as mark-making and where each viewing becomes an act of participation. The stage is set, the characters are suggested, and the narrative remains open, ready for its next movement.

For artwork inquiries, please contact Kimberley Cunningham at kimberley@whatiftheworld.com.