{"id":27007,"date":"2025-09-18T05:22:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T05:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/?p=27007"},"modified":"2025-09-18T23:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T23:25:08","slug":"taylor-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/2025\/09\/18\/taylor-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"27007\" class=\"elementor elementor-27007\" data-elementor-post-type=\"post\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-88e7a6a e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"88e7a6a\" data-element_type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-7103296 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"7103296\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.21.0 - 22-05-2024 *\/\n.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\tYear of birth: 1963<br>\nWhere do you live: Indianapolis, Indiana, with deep ties to Germany, Italy and Park City, Utah, where I\u2019ve lived, worked, and exhibited extensively<br>\nYour education: I studied contemporary art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Germany, where I lived for many years immersed in Berlin\u2019s post-Wall cultural scene.<br>\nDescribe your art in three words: Nostalgic, Layered, Transformative<br>\nYour discipline: Painting, with a practice that bridges collage, photography, screen printing, and mixed-media installation.<br>\n<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abstractmodern.com\/\">Website<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/taylorsmithstudio\/\">Instagram<\/a><\/strong>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-02a2b35 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"02a2b35\" data-element_type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-b40b9cf elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"b40b9cf\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h4><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-27009 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Photo-Grace-Smithjpg.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" srcset=\"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Photo-Grace-Smithjpg.jpg 1050w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Photo-Grace-Smithjpg-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Photo-Grace-Smithjpg-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Photo-Grace-Smithjpg-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Photo-Grace-Smithjpg-600x400.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1050px) 100vw, 1050px\" \/><\/h4><h4 style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your practice bridges photography, screen printing, painting, and collage. What usually sparks a new piece\u2014the material you find, an image from art history, or a social observation?<\/h4><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most often, the spark comes from the material itself. I\u2019m drawn to objects that carry memory\u2014like floppy disks, scraps of packaging, or images on the verge of being forgotten. These fragments already hold stories, and painting allows me to weave them together with cultural icons and art historical references. My time in Germany studying artists like Polke and Richter taught me to blur the lines between photography, screen printing, and painting. Ultimately, I see each work as a way to reflect on how memory, history, and cultural observation intersect.<\/p><p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-27010 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-1954-Mercedes-Benz.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1050\" height=\"595\" srcset=\"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-1954-Mercedes-Benz.jpg 1050w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-1954-Mercedes-Benz-300x170.jpg 300w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-1954-Mercedes-Benz-1024x580.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-1954-Mercedes-Benz-768x435.jpg 768w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-1954-Mercedes-Benz-600x340.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1050px) 100vw, 1050px\" \/> Taylor Smith | 1954 Mercedes Benz<\/p><h4 style=\"font-weight: 400\">You speak about \u201creimagined life within everyday things.\u201d What does the \u201credemption\u201d of obsolete technology mean to you?<\/h4><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">For me, redemption is about giving forgotten or obsolete technology a second life\u2014one that resists erasure. A floppy disk, for example, once carried someone\u2019s work, their data, their memories, and then, almost overnight, it became worthless, destined for a landfill. By pulling these objects into my paintings, I rescue them from disappearance and let them continue telling stories in a new way.<\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">I never open the disks to see what was inside; the mystery of that abandoned information feels important. It\u2019s an unintended collaboration with anonymous people from decades ago, and it reminds me that memory\u2014whether personal or cultural\u2014is fragile but still worth preserving.<\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">The act of redemption is also ecological. These materials don\u2019t decompose, and left behind, they break down into harmful microplastics. So, in reimagining them through art, I\u2019m not only reflecting on memory and history but also insisting that what we discard still matters. In a sense, the work redeems both the material and, symbolically, the idea of memory itself.<\/p><p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-27011 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Abraham-Lincoln-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1050\" height=\"1147\" srcset=\"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Abraham-Lincoln-.jpg 1050w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Abraham-Lincoln--275x300.jpg 275w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Abraham-Lincoln--937x1024.jpg 937w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Abraham-Lincoln--768x839.jpg 768w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Abraham-Lincoln--600x655.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1050px) 100vw, 1050px\" \/> Taylor Smith | Abraham Lincoln<\/p><h4 style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why floppy disks? How do you source, sort, and curate their labels, and what role do original inscriptions play in a piece?<\/h4><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Floppy disks fascinate me because they sit at the intersection of memory, obsolescence, and technology. They were once cutting-edge, holding people\u2019s work, photographs, and even fragments of personal lives\u2014and now they\u2019re essentially useless. I\u2019m drawn to that tension: the fragility of memory preserved on a medium that the world has already abandoned.<\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">I source them from many places\u2014collectors, thrift shops, donations, and sometimes entire boxes found in storage clean-outs. Each disk carries traces of a past life, whether it\u2019s a blank surface or a handwritten label. I don\u2019t open them to see what\u2019s inside; I prefer to preserve the mystery, letting the physicality of the object itself speak. The handwriting, the smudges, or even the way someone cataloged their data becomes a kind of portrait of an unknown person.<\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I\u2019m building a piece, I pay attention to the rhythm and pattern of the disks, sometimes highlighting labels and inscriptions, sometimes obscuring them in layers of paint. They create both texture and narrative\u2014fragments of anonymous stories embedded in the work. For me, those inscriptions are a reminder of how personal technology once was, how data lived in our hands rather than the cloud, and how memory itself can be both intimate and ephemeral.<\/p><p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-27012 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Celestial-Freestyle-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1050\" height=\"1226\" srcset=\"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Celestial-Freestyle-.jpg 1050w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Celestial-Freestyle--257x300.jpg 257w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Celestial-Freestyle--877x1024.jpg 877w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Celestial-Freestyle--768x897.jpg 768w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Celestial-Freestyle--600x701.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1050px) 100vw, 1050px\" \/> Taylor Smith | Celestial Freestyle<\/p><h4 style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you ever recover or read data from the disks before using them? If so, has anything you found shaped a work?<\/h4><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">No\u2014I never recover or read the data on the disks. From the very beginning, it\u2019s been important to me to leave them sealed, to respect the privacy of whoever once used them. The allure lies in the mystery: knowing that each disk once carried something personal\u2014work, photographs, fragments of someone\u2019s life\u2014but choosing not to unlock it.<\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">For me, the power is in imagining what might be there without ever intruding. The labels, handwriting, and physical traces already reveal enough to spark curiosity. By leaving the data untouched, I allow the disks to function as relics of memory\u2014closed containers of the past that now take on new meaning in a painting. That locked, unknowable quality is part of what makes the work resonate: it reminds us how much of history and memory is forever out of reach.<\/p><h4 style=\"font-weight: 400\">Appropriation is central to pop art. Where do you draw the ethical and legal lines when recontextualizing brands and iconic portraits?<\/h4><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Appropriation has always been central to pop art, and I see myself working in that lineage. My intention is never to replicate or sell a product but to transform cultural icons, brands, and visual relics into something entirely new. These symbols already live in our collective memory\u2014whether it\u2019s a Hollywood face, a fashion logo, or a fragment of advertising\u2014and my work reimagines them in the context of painting, memory, and contemporary culture.<\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don\u2019t concern myself with the strict legal or commercial boundaries, because I\u2019m not making handbags or neckties for the department store. I\u2019m making singular works of art that reinterpret imagery we already share as a society. In my paintings, appropriation isn\u2019t about reproduction\u2014it\u2019s about transformation. I filter these symbols through layers of collage, paint, and found material, so that they carry the weight of both nostalgia and critique.<\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">For me, the ethical line is about intention. I\u2019m not exploiting these icons but rather reflecting on how they\u2019ve shaped our ideas of aspiration, memory, and the so-called \u201cAmerican Dream.\u201d In this politically and ideologically divided world, my work offers nostalgic reflections on those shared cultural roots, even as it questions how fragile and fractured they\u2019ve become.<\/p><p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-27014 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Float-Like-A-Butterfly.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1050\" height=\"1169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Float-Like-A-Butterfly.jpg 1050w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Float-Like-A-Butterfly-269x300.jpg 269w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Float-Like-A-Butterfly-920x1024.jpg 920w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Float-Like-A-Butterfly-768x855.jpg 768w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Float-Like-A-Butterfly-600x668.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1050px) 100vw, 1050px\" \/> Taylor Smith | Float Like A Butterfly<\/p><h4 style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your mother\u2019s Warhol story and assisting on Keith Haring\u2019s Berlin Wall mural are formative moments. What did each teach you that still guides your studio today?<\/h4><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warhol\u2019s story, told through my mother, taught me the courage of vision\u2014how something ordinary could be transformed into culture-changing art. Assisting Keith Haring on the Berlin Wall mural in the 80s showed me the urgency of art in public space, its ability to speak directly to freedom and history. Both lessons still drive my work: to take risks with materials and imagery, and to create art that resonates beyond the studio.<\/p><h4 style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many works have a candy-colored surface with darker subtexts (consumption, waste, mortality). How do you engineer that tension?<\/h4><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">I use bright, candy-colored surfaces to echo the glossy allure of consumer culture, but beneath them I layer themes of waste, memory, and mortality. The tension comes from that contrast\u2014the seductive polish on the outside and the fragility or darkness within. In a way, the paintings act like packaging: shiny and attractive, but concealing something more complex inside.<\/p><p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-27015 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Grizzly-Bear.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1050\" height=\"705\" srcset=\"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Grizzly-Bear.jpg 1050w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Grizzly-Bear-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Grizzly-Bear-1024x688.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Grizzly-Bear-768x516.jpg 768w, https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Taylor-Smith-Grizzly-Bear-600x403.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1050px) 100vw, 1050px\" \/> Taylor Smith | Grizzly Bear<\/p><h4 style=\"font-weight: 400\">How did living in Germany shape your sensibility\u2014design, typography, post-Wall Berlin culture?<\/h4><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Living in Germany shaped me in countless ways, both visually and conceptually. I studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and was immersed in a culture where design, typography, and visual clarity are deeply valued. That sense of precision and boldness in graphic language still informs my work today, even when I\u2019m layering paint or collage.<\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Berlin in the years after the Wall came down was especially formative. It was a city in transition\u2014raw, experimental, full of artists who were questioning history while inventing new futures. That atmosphere gave me permission to take risks, to collapse boundaries between mediums, and to think of art as something that could exist just as powerfully in the street as in the gallery.<\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Being surrounded by the work of German artists like Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter also shaped my sensibility. Their ways of reinterpreting photography, printmaking, and painting gave me a framework for blurring those same lines in my own practice. Ultimately, Germany taught me to see memory, history, and culture as layered surfaces\u2014always shifting, always open to reinvention.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Year of birth: 1963 Where do you live: Indianapolis, Indiana, with deep ties to Germany, Italy and Park City, Utah, where I\u2019ve lived, worked, and exhibited extensively Your education: I studied contemporary art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Germany, where I lived for many years immersed in Berlin\u2019s post-Wall cultural scene. Describe your [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27007"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27487,"href":"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27007\/revisions\/27487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visualartjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}