Monday, February 6, 2012

Josephine Taylor's Marvelous Monsterfaces


We visited the Catherine Clark Gallery in SF to see Josephine Taylor's outstanding solo show, which is up thru February 11th, 2012. Try to see this show, it is a rewarding, different and riveting body of work.  Due to the lighting,  the photos yellow tones are really all white whites. Many of these pieces are very large, huge pieces of velvet paper, pinned to the wall. We have posted some details to help grasp the scale of the work.



Her style is familiar yet completely original- reminding one of old Asian art and figurative watercolors. They have a modern day angst, some with erotic imagery and some with dementia-inspired, grotesque actions. Topsy-turvy figures swirl into each other and mutated portraits gaze sadly. The inked lines are very fine and the shading super subtle,  feeling softly beautiful despite the subject matter. 



There are also 4 very strong collage/sculptures of faces, with sliced and diced features to make them 3D. (below)



 All in all very inspiring works, juxtapositions which really move the viewer, depicting the monster within. A must see.