Artist Statement

       In the studio, showing up is the most important step. I train myself to stay in the moment so I can engage with the process of conceptualizing, planning, problem solving, adapting, persevering, and completing. It is the process, not the product, which keeps me coming back to the studio to create paintings, drawings, non-traditional sculptures, and ceramics. My work often plays with themes of the transient nature of experience, memory, identity, and tradition in observations of portraiture, landscapes, domestic scenes, and reflective surfaces. I frequently utilize kinetic marks, transparency, and opacity; emphasizing contrast; and confronting preconceived notions and associations with lightness and darkness. When the tool is in my hand, I feel as though I am an extension of the instrument as much as it is an extension of me. We can work together to be a conduit for inspiration if we can accept that neither of us truly has full control. 

 

       To ensure my art is a mindfulness practice through which I can channel my focus and attention to detail while remaining detached from the final product, I sign my work under a pseudonym. Even though the work I make is often deeply personal, I do not need it to be associated with me once I have completed my process. To hold my identity in my work would be to hold onto the past moment of me making it when I know that the very second after I have completed a piece, I am a different person. Therefore, Taylor Dean is who I was, and who knows what I will do next. Ultimately, in prioritizing my art process over the performance of exhibition and detaching my identity from my products, a great deal of my work is private and will not be shown to others. In the age of identity commodification where I feel the pressure to definitively brand myself and give all of myself for consumption, I choose to keep my own secrets and treat myself in words unspoken.

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    -Catherine Hickey