Taylor Laufersweiler
Taylor Laufersweiler
Taylor Laufersweiler
Taylor Laufersweiler works primarily through drawing, painting and installation, often bridging the three together. His work attempts to queer space and perception in order to reorient through disorientation. Disorientation lies at the core of the work as a means to navigate the sensation of being, and feeling, out of place.
In-between
2020 Acrylic on canvas 203.2 x 152.4 cm / 80 x 60 in
Taylor’s work places himself within an imagined space made up of lines, symbols, and passageways. The space becomes slanted and collapsed as a means to explore ideas of entropy in relation to identity. Entropy that supersedes the definition of order to disorder, confronting and questioning his own sense of direction, locating him within a liminal space. Liminal space, the time between what was and what is — a place of transition, a place of not knowing.
Drop Off
2020 Acrylic and dye on canvas 137.16 x 104.14 cm / 54 x 41 in
Thermic Entry
2020 Acrylic and dye on canvas 121.92 x 106.68 cm / 48 x 42 in
Taylor Laufersweiler on his practice
I came to graduate school straight from undergrad. I’ve always had the privilege of a studio space and all the facilities and materials that come with these types of institutional spaces. In quarantine, I only brought a few drawing materials home with me so things got a lot more specific in my work. I was working mostly in installation, drawing, and sculpture and exclusively in black and white. Now I’m working in just paint and all color. I feel a lot of excitement in my work right now and I feel like I’m approaching my work with more questions and less expectations.
During quarantine I was working slowly and before quarantine I was doing wall drawings that primarily responded to architectural spaces and how I could disorient the pictorial space and undo my own expectations of how pictorial space is structured in relation to architecture. During quarantine, I was doing a lot of really small drawings of imagined interior spaces. These paintings are kind of branching out of those. In terms of interior spaces, I’m depicting doorways and hallways and stairs. These are the kinds of spaces or architectural elements that exist between and bond together separate spaces. These architectural elements are points of transformation as you pass through them. By bringing these architectural signifiers into painting I’m attempting to destabilize the architecture of the pictorial space and destabilize the viewer’s expectations of how to navigate that space.
These architectural signifiers become points of entry that ultimately kick you out and turn you around, lending toward the psychological.
Hunter MFA
The annual Spring 2020 Thesis Exhibition for graduates of the Hunter College MFA Studio Art program represents works by 19 artist graduates of this nationally noted program. Originally planned as a series of physical presentations at Hunter’s 205 Hudson Street campus in Tribeca, but canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the MFA Thesis Exhibition’s digital iteration aims to provide a new, expanded platform for young artists entering the field.