Henry Taylor
“NIECE COUSIN KIN LOOK HOW LONG IT'S BEEN”
New York, 19 East 66th Street
Consistent with Taylor’s oeuvre, these new paintings weave together visual references spanning contemporary politics, American social adversity, and the faces of his milieu articulated through the language of portraiture. However, this latest series includes many works created during the artist’s recent travels in Senegal, compositions hatched from contemplations on the African diaspora, colonialism, slavery, the odds of diverging routes of struggle, and also on unity and seeing oneself in the face of a stranger.
In the same way Taylor has depicted African-American sports stars, icons of Black history, or the patients of a state mental hospital, in this new series the artist captures an essence in his subjects that is both universal and exposes something of Taylor’s own emotional depth and personal storyline. As Zadie Smith wrote in 2018: “This is painting that goes way beyond the brute fact of a body. Other people look; Taylor sees. He puts himself in the way of people.” Each painting is another piece in an ever-growing visual collage reflecting a cultural community to which Taylor belongs, images that remain thinly veiled psychic snapshots of the artist’s path to mapping his own identity and the splintering fragments of a collective identity.
Cover Image: Not Yet Titled, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 27 5/8 x 19 3/4 inches
