Henry Taylor paints quick, loose portraits of his relatives, friends, celebrities, and athletes on large and small canvases, as well as creating evocative sculptures and assemblages of found materials. Taylor worked for a decade as a psychiatric nurse in a state hospital in California, an experience that informs the humanity and warmth evident in his paintings. “I paint those subjects I have love and sympathy for,” he has said. Drawing on the folk art and modernism present in a strain of African American painting that traces back to Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden, Taylor has painted monumental canvases based on WPA photographs of black farm workers. Untitled (2011) is a large-scale painting of Taylor’s friend Will Gillespie, the nephew of Dizzy Gillespie. In his installation work It’s Like A Jungle (2011), Taylor presents an assortment of used objects, including boxes, crates, and furniture, suggesting the refuse that accumulates on L.A. streets from provisional downtown community housing. Taylor’s work has been compared to that of his contemporary, Kerry James Marshall.
Henry Taylor paints quick, loose portraits of his relatives, friends, celebrities, and athletes on large and small canvases, as well as creating evocative sculptures and assemblages of found materials. Taylor worked for a decade as a psychiatric nurse in a state hospital in California, an experience that informs the humanity and warmth evident in his paintings. “I paint those subjects I have love and sympathy for,” he has said. Drawing on the folk art and modernism present in a strain of African American painting that traces back to Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden, Taylor has painted monumental canvases based on WPA photographs of black farm workers. Untitled (2011) is a large-scale painting of Taylor’s friend Will Gillespie, the nephew of Dizzy Gillespie. In his installation work It’s Like A Jungle (2011), Taylor presents an assortment of used objects, including boxes, crates, and furniture, suggesting the refuse that accumulates on L.A. streets from provisional downtown community housing. Taylor’s work has been compared to that of his contemporary, Kerry James Marshall.
