SAFIRA TAYLOR (1993) IS AN ARTIST BASED IN THE NETHERLANDS AND BORN IN MUSCAT, OMAN. SHE OBTAINED AN MA IN PAINTING FROM THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART IN 2020 AND A BA IN FINE ART FROM THE MINERVA ACADEMY IN GRONINGEN (2017). TAYLOR HAS EXHIBITED INTERNATIONALLY WITH SOME OF HER MOST RECENT SHOWS AT TORCH GALLERY (2019) IN AMSTERDAM, FOLD GALLERY IN LONDON (2020) and WEP GROningen in Groningen (2022). SHE HAS ALSO BEEN AWARDED THE PRINS BERNHARD CULTUUR FONDS (2018) AND THE HANS BRINKER BUDGET TROPHY (2015).
Taylor seeks to give visibility to the virtue of everyday processes in the natural environment through careful observation and translation. She reflects on shapes that occur in nature that symbolise process or reproduction: ovoid pairs in a body, the cross-section of onion and garlic bulbs where the plant’s process of growth and reproduction is visible, and the centre of a flower, a cluster that expands.
Taylor has been considering family stories while working as she sees these as having similar dynamics to those found in nature, passed on from generation to generation, taking on new shapes and meaning, and persisting within us. Taylor paints on vintage linen sheets. The sheets are thick and textured with signs of use and repair. They were historically part of a bridal trousseau, and have been passed down through families. She attempts to include the materiality of the linen as an object of artistic consideration, treating the entirety of my materials as part of that conversation on natural dynamics.
Both her physical and theoretical process of making involves numerous layers; the layering of thoughts, the layering of time, and the layering of experience. In the studio, Taylor works with layered materials to create paintings, altering the layers to allow part of the process to be exposed to the viewer. The generosity of an exposed methodology invites the audience into conversation with the work, suggesting an artistic process that does not end in the work itself but continues beyond it.