Married to Amazement
I am a painter. My identity is expressed in oil medium hanging for discerning eyes I may not even know. My art is a process of self-exploration a personal legacy in paint. It is the vehicle that allows me to learn and interpret the nature of perception and forces that lie behind all opposition. Painting provides me with a working dialogue between the positive and negative between something and nothing between action and reaction, and between the fixed and the fluid. Art is how I navigate through these experiential paradigms where concept, percept, motive and will are not separate; they are the webs that hold me to the sequence of events in my life. I catalog these events in my memory and make them into art.
As an artist I cannot separate myself from the world that I live in, the world that inevitably becomes a method in paint. In life thus far it is the objective state of consciousness that I seek, a place where the mind is beyond the struggle of opposition; but it is the subjective state that I am held captive by, the place from where I am inspired to make art. Most often our ordinary perception cannot for-see outside its own limitations, outside its learned experience. As a culture so much information is being "installed" in our minds that we become a collection of data, of received information. We live in a world mutually created by members of our society. Where is the ground zero, the objective state of mind that is our authentic self? This is the great question that I ask myself in hopes that my art may deliver an answer. Like a contradiction, I am trying to capture something that doesn’t have form, essentially I am challenging the word essence. As artist’s we keep trying to solve the unsolvable and each piece ups the anti for the next. We say it over and over in different ways, in different paintings, but no piece ever fully explains or takes you there, because the nature of essence is absolute, and the absolute is contrary to perception and technique. The artist therefore keeps creating art, in hopes to one day capture essence.
I feel a constant witness to the distinctions between beauty and tragedy, birth and death, light and dark. As an observer I’m in perpetual wonder about the nature of possibility and the parallels between oneself and ones culture. As I evolve so does my work. I can look back to any year, any body of work and know right were I was in myself, again it’s a personal legacy in paint. And as I live within the subjective states of reality I can only hope for those brief glimpses into the timelessness of this present moment, to capture the beauty that is offered to me in countless opportunities.
At the end of the day in my studio, I remember that the artist and the viewer are separate entities but unite to give art its overall meaning and context in history. I am reminded of the value, the unique connection I have with the world outside of me, that takes place very much from inside of me. With laughter and ease I can smile at the playful, intelligent, manifested world that is right now, always unraveling. When I leave this world I want to say I was married to amazement.
I make art in the meantime.
"Resumes its Search" oil mixed media on wood panel 22" x 22"
"Birds Eye View" oil digital encaustic on wood panel 16" x 20"
An Island native, Kara Taylor received her BFA from Maine College of Art in 1997. In 2000 she returned home to the Vineyard and opened a gallery at Nip n' Tuck Farm, in her agricultural home town of West Tisbury. The creation of "Haystack Gallery" was an immediate success. Its purpose was to allow Kara to feature exclusively her own work. She occupied this space for 5 years and has since moved to a bigger space on Main St. in Vineyard Haven, changing the galleries name to "Kara Taylor Fine Art". Martha's Vineyard continues to be Kara's source for home, gallery, family, and inspiration. To learn more about Kara's work visit her web site at www.KaraTaylorArt.com.