HENRY TAYLOR

Taylor’s paintings, executed quickly and instinctually from memory, newspaper clippings, snapshots, and in-person sittings, are variously light-hearted, intimate, and somber. In them, he combines flat planes of bold, sensuous color with areas of rich, intimate detail and loose brushstrokes to create paintings that feel alive. Guided by a deep-seated empathy for people and their lived experiences, Taylor captures the humanity, social milieu, and mood of his subjects, whose visceral presence is heightened by their closely cropped, often life-size images.

In working from personal experience and shared history, Taylor offers a view of everyday life in the United States that is grounded in the experiences of his own community, including the incarceration, poverty, and often deadly interactions with police that disproportionately affect Black Americans. Deeply steeped in art history, his work forms a continuum with the expressive figurative painting and politically engaged work of European and American artists from Max Beckmann to Bob Thompson, Philip Guston, and Alice Neel.