Pire, 2011, Terry Taylor
Oil on linen, 223cm x 55cm
Provenance: Steve Livesey Galleries, Melbourne.
Terry Taylor paints one thing only, human skulls. Her oil paintings explore human skulls in many variations, including representations of historical figures, arranged in medieval and royal portraits, and funereal arrangements. Travelling regularly to Europe, Taylor documents skulls she encounters from across the span of Western development in various degrees of decay. Whilst her chosen subject matter is macabre, Taylor approaches her skulls with wit and humour.
Artist Statement
'There are messages in my skulls. We live in a fragile world. To draw and paint the dead whilst listening and watching the living continues and compels me, like a powerful addiction, it never lets go. The human skulls that I paint call upon fragments of the past. A history of life and death, humour and tragedy, truth and lies. My paintings are of the living dead and of the dead living, as though the soul continues to exist as a shadow that takes root elsewhere. This life and death duo continues to fascinate me, as if from a magical and ancient past they create hidden storms that rend and possess the unconsciousness.' (1).
Other works by this artist: