Murmurs is a solo presentation of new works by Tāmaki Makaurau based artist Imogen Taylor. Teasing out the push and pull of abstraction and figuration, Taylor conjures enduring forms as part of a sensual approach to painting. With brightening hues she investigates intimate relationships with bodies, both human and non-human, as well as communication and what might exceed it.

Taylor (b. 1985) is known for creating geometrical abstractions that engage and play with the forms and legacies of modernisms. Though she draws from the abstracted forms and coloured juxtapositions of historic painting movements, her paintings are stripped of the masculine self-seriousness that saturates the source material. Instead, in their vibrant interplay of thickly applied colour and contrasts between imposing parallel lines and soft curves, the work is joyful, sincere, and pleasurable.

Taylor graduated in 2007 from Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and in 2010 gained a Post-Graduate Diploma of Fine Arts. Significant solo exhibitions include: Quiet Motel, Whangārei Art Museum, Whangārei (2022); Sapphic Fragments, Hocken Collections Uare Taoka o Hākena, Dunedin (2020); Pocket Histories, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Auckland (2018); Social Studies, the Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt (2019) and BODY LANGUAGE, Artspace, Auckland (2015). In 2019 Taylor was the recipient of the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship and in 2017 she was artist in residence at McCahon house.

The monograph IMOGEN TAYLOR was published by Michael Lett in April 2022.

Press release courtesy Michael Lett.