The Art of Henry Taylor

Henry Taylor’s show in the project space at the Santa Monica Museum of Art at Bergamot Station was a vibrant and personal exploration.  Entitled “Girrrrrl!,” this show contained four paintings — one per wall — and Taylor had left the rest up to the wonderment and understanding that the great works impart upon the viewer.

Taylor is a local artist from the ‘hood who made it to CalArts and never lost his self-taught sensibilities about painting.  School just gave it some shine and depth. The embodiment and conceptual integrity of “Girrrrrl!,” and all of his work, however, is old-school Henry Taylor.  It’s a part of him that, as experienced in the sharing power of many artists, flows quite naturally.

Taylor is an artist who, in the studio, will talk to you about his women, his children — his life — without missing a beat while coloring the canvas.  If you know him, you feel these works coming together as you take them in.

…and you hear his sweet voice in the background.

Henry has been through a lot, and the only thing you remember after meeting him is how he never stops smiling, even when he’s telling a gritty tale or how glad he is to see you.  Moreover, as I mentioned before, Henry Taylor comes through unfiltered via the work.

Walking with Vito is a large work depicting two guys and a large dog strolling through South LA.  One holds up a brightly hued drink to his mouth, enlivening the painting with neighborhood noise unheard and a swirl of conversation unspoken.  I yearned to know the story behind the work, for Taylor’s rambling reminiscence to fill me in.

I recently had the entire family over for Thanksgiving.  It was the most people in my house since we rented it and moved out several years ago.  I roasted the turkey my mother prepped earlier at her house.  She also made corn muffins, which she had to explain to my Japanese roommates.  I had taken it for granted that everyone on Earth knew what cornbread is, besides a Henry Taylor painting.

Cornbread tells its own long history, perhaps filling in the gaps in awareness of how it fits in the Black community.  Often, Taylor will paint the title into the work, giving it an oversimplified comic strip sense. With the bold strokes and colors that he uses, however, there remains a sense of urgency and plainness that is very important to understand.  Cornbread, the few simple ingredients (see the Morton Salt can) needed to make it, and the stove/oven (sometimes fried, like turkey!) bring it all into the present but also recalls from all those times mama made it and you gobbled it up, sopping juice from collard greens and stickiness from the cheese oozing off the macaroni on your plate.  The economy with which Taylor takes you there is commendable in this piece, and you just want to sit there and take it in.

With figures, Taylor will often omit the features and restrain the tone to reveal more of a specific theme or story.  In the tradition of the featureless and naïve countenance in works by Robert Colescott, Bob Thompson, William H. Johnson, and Synthia Saint James, for example, Taylor challenges the notion that the clear and concrete view of a face and its attributes is altogether critical to the success of a particular painting.

With She Mixed, Taylor takes on another wide open neighborhood vista containing one house, one contorted couple caught outside in flagrante delicto on a discarded sofa, and one small figure looking on.  Again, the title is painted into the piece, lending more humorous value and explanation.  Taken one way, it tells you that She, whoever she is, has mixed something, obviously herself with something or someone else.  On the other hand, you might understand, in the Ebonic colloquialism, that she is mixed and is biracial, as her light complexion would indicate.  I couldn’t stop chucking at this piece, and there again was Taylor’s voice, prodding me along…  Is the other figure in She Mixed Henry, I ask myself?

Press time coincides with the closing of this powerful small collection, but Taylor’s work has recently become very widely collected and can be seen at Sister, his local gallery in Chinatown.