About Laura Taylor

I grew up straddling the Northern and Southern hemispheres, living back and forth between Canada and Brazil. My time in Brazil was spent deep in the Atlantic rain forest, on the coast of the state of São Paulo, in the heart of a huge extended family. The contrast between “my Brazil” and the small town suburban neighborhood I grew up in, made everything about the South larger than life. My memories of Brazil are colored by love and, to use a Brazilian word, saudades. A mix of longing and nostalgia. My recent paintings express that longing. They are oil paintings of houses that are stripped of detail and emerge as basic forms. They are archetypal images of House. The paintings range in size from 60 x 54 inches, to 9 x 11 inches, painted in oil on canvas or panel. The colors of my mother’s country affected me deeply, mirroring the warmth of family and the love I experienced there. Some of these paintings are heavily impasto, evoking weathered walls, layers of memory. Others are lightly painted, luminous. The colors are vibrant — pink, orange, violet. The sea is always present. One can feel the warmth and taste the salt in the air. Human presence is hidden but sensed. Through empty windows and doorways one almost expects to catch a glimpse of a figure moving through the vibrant light of the tropics. At times the paintings look like a child’s rendition of a house and that makes sense because these paintings have been wrested from the deepest parts of myself. Pre-verbal memories. Ancestral memory of shelter. Of what the word home means. I would like to sell my work on Artfinder because it is a way to reach art lovers all around the world.