I recall reading an interview with Henry Taylor where he talks about spending time with his community and friends. He made a deceptively simple statement that has sunk deep into my thinking about art. “…and I get to paint them.”.
The Whitney Museum of American Art is now devoting a floor to Taylor. There’s a big room in the center that focuses on work from the early 2010’s. The remaining galleries mostly show very recent work, and this is where the painting is most extraordinary.
In the work everything comes together. Distortion, emotion, expression, symbolism, fantasy, naivetéy, composition, color, freshness, simplicity. The work is an explosion of humanity that dominates and jumps off the canvas. In Taylor’s simple statement you can see his process. He is immersed in life, and with mastery and joy he transmutes and paints that humanity.
Taylor leads me to two exceptional young Philadelphia artists.
O’Neil Scott
O’Neil Scott, with recent shows at Corridor Contemporary and Villanova University Art Gallery, also brings us in direct contact with his human subjects. They express vision, wisdom, certainty. They live in a landscape of abstracted and referential forms made whole through a fine sensibility of composition and color. They are rendered with the care and technique of a master painter. Where Taylor’s humanity is vibrant and beautiful and rough, Scott approaches humanity through exquisite control. Both artists combine the real and the symbolic without missing a beat.
Branche Coverdale
Finally, Branche Coverdale, an illustrator and a painter with a recent show at Paradigm Gallery and Studio https://www.paradigmarts.org/ has brought to life an imaginary city. Looking at Branche’s work I cannot help but think “Where does this come from? How do you invent this?”. In truth the artist has grown and nurtured this city for years. The celebration is so strong it has overwhelmed the forms of the world and created a new world where everything is joy. Contemplating the faces and all the little occurrences of Branche’s work gives us time spent in a very sweet alternate reality.
What I also feel looking at all three is a sense of reverence. Clearly the headwinds and cuts of being Black in America have become the stuff of poetry. The three artists have taken the temperature of the times, absorbed their surroundings and given us something of power and beauty. To do this work you must be deeply in love with your subject. We are richer for their work.
Henry Tayler: The B Side, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, to Jan. 28, 2024.
For further Artblog coverage of Branche Coverdale and Henry Taylor, see
Alex Smith’s “The gleeful anarchy of Henry Taylor’s ‘Nothing Change, Nothing Strange’ at the Fabric Workshop and Museum”
Corey Qureshi’s “‘Around the Block,’ Branche Coverdale’s ode to neighborhood life”
About Pete Sparber
Pete Sparber lives, paints, draws and writes about art in Philadelphia. He’s led an eclectic life, living in cities across the US, as well as Tokyo and Shanghai. He holds an MFA from Cornell, a martial arts black belt, and recently ended a career as a senior business executive. He and his wife Karen live in center city, where he publishes The Current, a curated review of Visual Arts in Philadelphia.
