LA REVIEW OF BOOKS

PRESS RELEASE



Track 16 presents Los Angeles-based artist Camilla Taylor in her solo exhibition, “Your Words in My Mouth.” The show runs through October 17 and is open by appointment.

Presenting a new body of work, the show includes sculpture using a variety of media, among them ceramic, glass, wood, paper, and thread, and several drypoint prints. In these works, Taylor seeks to understand the phenomena of internal deception – the lie transformed into truth as the liar now believes it. Conning can have different goals. Conning happens for financial gain, but also for love and acceptance.

One of the centerpieces to the exhibition is the work Speaking in unison, telling their own lies, an installation made of 17 ceramic, glazed heads, all of which have vacant eyes and open mouths. The heads, arranged in a circle and faced inward, are connected by string, representing the thread of conversation as it spreads between people or, alternately, versions of ourselves. Although the string shows a transmission of ideas, each head has a small version of the conversation that runs continuously between the group.

Also presented is But I remember it differently, a large, head sculpture that contains a “secret” sculpture inside of it, a small figure that is concealed from the viewer unless they are looking for it.  The comfort of a story repeated  is a ceramic figure that is wrapped in thread, representing how the stories we tell ourselves cocoon us in order to make truth possible to live with. Coupled with the human figures are architectural sculptures, including  One to the Other, which are 120 unique, miniature ceramic chairs with underglaze and The methods of concealment and disclosure, which are 7 kiln-cast glass staircases in a marbled white and gray.

Taylor’s drypoints include the subject of both architecture and portraiture. Disembodied chairs, stairs, and houses float through the ground, where often the negative space overwhelms the figure and delicate linework. In her portrait series, the work highlights people who are notable for their ability to lie and shape reality for others. These individuals spin years-long ruses, yet they do so for love and attention and not financial gain: pretending to be younger and attending high school as the popular kid, having loved ones riddled with cancer, or joining support groups for new fathers yet having no child. The works include a self-portrait by the artist to implicate all of us in the lies we tell ourselves to prevent emotional pain.

Trained primarily as a printmaker, Taylor transitioned to sculpture when she had no access to printmaking equipment. Taylor’s sensitive and austere work explores themes of dreamscape, the unconscious, conceptions of the material body and the abstract idea of self.