07.12.2013 | 02.02.2014
THE STORY OF STRIPES AND DOTS (CHAPTER 6) | ZIN TAYLOR
Opening Reception December 7 at 8 PM
Reception and Forthcoming Publication Supported by RBC Foundation
"I like to think about growth as describing the additive qualities that occur when a subject is addressed with intent. It's what happens as the byproduct of intentionality... Address a subject and that subject grows. It takes up more space, occupies new areas, speaks to things it didn't before." - Zin Taylor
The work of Zin Taylor is rooted in the literary and the phenomenological. He often uses moments in art and cultural history as the conceptual foundation upon which he composes his ensembles or total-works-of-art. Taylor's elaborate installations, which include video, performance, drawing, sculpture, sound and photography, explore form as a densely layered process akin to organic growth, in which the artist, narrative, and raw material enact their individual agency toward an eventual outcome.
Taylor's practice is often characterized by structured investigations that are by contrast abstract, ambiguous, playful and even absurd. His 2007 work, The Flute of Sub, took as its frame of reference an ancient tunnel of unknown use as a material start point to produce its sculptural equivalent - a flute - the music from which narrated the landscape it inhabited. In 2009, The Bakery of Blok, presented a series of primitive wooden tools animated as the stars of eight TV pilot episodes, along with related sets, promotional posters and other cultural ephemera. In both instances, Taylor draws on unassuming context to develop unorthodox narratives of the transformation of material and form.
Similarly, The Story of Stripes and Dots (Chapter 6) addresses form as a philosophical quandary. Stripes and dots, two hallmarks of abstraction, are used within this series to develop a surface-language with which to read the forms they are applied to. A stripe seen from head-on is a dot, a dot seen from the side could very well be a stripe. Dots are points in a conversation - the tangential narrative of said conversation is represented with a stripe. With a focus on the form of thought rather than its content, Taylor probes at those foundational assumptions inherent to object making. How does an idea transform from being abstract and inculpable to something concrete and tangible? What is the shape of a thought? What is its texture? How does it exist? For Taylor, this enigmatic divide between concept and material is a fertile and malleable space to occupy.
Zin Taylor was born in 1978, in Calgary, Canada and lives and works in Brussels. He has exhibited internationally with solo projects at Gallery Isabella Bartolozzi in Berlin (DE), Miguel Abreu Gallery in New York (US), Maison des Arts of Malkoff in Paris (FR), Gallery Micky Scubert in Berlin (DE), Ursula Blickle Stiftung in Kraichtal (DE) and Kiosk - contemporary art space - in Ghent (BE). He is represented by Jessica Bradley Gallery, Toronto, and Supportico Lopez, Berlin.
This exhibition is organized by the Southern Alberta Art Gallery and curated by Ryan Doherty. Funding assistance from the RBC Foundation, Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the City of Lethbridge.
