Sally Taylor
My work affirms a desire to understand more about human relationships, specifically my own interaction with others. They are equally about a balance between formal concerns and the communication of emotional resonance. Using found materials enables the superimposition of marks in relation to the personal history of the surface. Materials such as cardboard from old jigsaw boxes are well-worn grounds with tears and imperfections, and the process embraces the awkwardly constructed items they become. Geometric shapes become ‘blockages’ or ‘openings’; the recurring motifs of facial features / ‘smiling mouths’ aim to unravel social constructs surrounding the unsaid / non-verbal interaction.
Sally Taylor (b. 1977, Bury, Lancashire) Lives and works in North Yorkshire.
Selected exhibitions include: Head Blocker, ArtShed Glaisdale (2023); Champs Noir, Terrace Gallery, London (2023); Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2022, London and UK tour (2022-3); Dalby Forest Residency, Large scale works supported by the Forestry Commission, Dalby Forest, North Yorkshire (2021); The Far Away Nearby, Rabley Gallery, Wiltshire (2020); Fully Awake 5.6, Freelands Foundation, London (2019); Some Spaces Left, Platform A, Middlesbrough (2018); Ink Art Fair Miami, Rabley Contemporary (2016-18).
She has been nominated for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize (previously Jerwood) on seven occasions and was a prize-winner in 2014 and her work is held in collections across the USA and Europe.
She is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at York St John University. Co-Director of AHH Studio Collective, North Yorkshire (affordable artist studio provision, project space and residency programme).