Download Fraser Taylor

Fraser Taylor
Threewalls, Chicago, Illinois
Recommendation by Robin Dluzen
Fraser Taylor, "Orchid/Dirge," installation shot at Threewalls, 2015. Photo credit: Clare Britt
Continuing through May 23, 2015
At a moment in art's history when favored abstract formalism lacks content and emotes little, Fraser Taylor
does not shy away from expressiveness. The UK-born, Chicago-based artist’s exhibition “Orchid/Dirge” is
the culmination of a year-long sabbatical and residency in Scotland and, as the title suggests, the theme of
death is prominent. In “Scalloway,” a series of vertical banners is silk screened with Taylor’s signature
combination of line drawing and color blocking. Upon entering the project space, the viewer sees only the
colorful, celebratory side of the suspended banners. Later, as one leaves the room, the flipside reveals
stark, black-and-white compositions of mourning.
In the main gallery, older works of collage and oil on canvas are accompanied by a broad platform bearing
a collection of spindly sculptures entitled “Black Flowers.” Haphazard assemblages of sticks, string and
plaster — all painted black like their plinth — these “Black Flowers” extend upwards, like a landscape of
long dead trees preserved in the acidic quagmire of a bog. Here, Taylor, through entirely nonrepresentational means, deftly succeeds at capturing a feeling of a ritual of the living that honors
remnants, that singular moment suspended between presence and absence.