Michael Taylor

Michael Taylor is a South African artist who lives and works in Cape Town. He studied at Stellenbosch University, where he completed his Master’s Degree in Visual Art. Primarily working in the mediums of painting and drawing, his work explores notions around narrative art, absorbing ideas from illustration and abstract representation. 

In 2013, Michael was shortlisted as 100 Young Painters of Tomorrow by Thames & Hudson. His work is also included in the Woodner Collection.

‘My work can be described as ironic, illustrative, and self-reflexive pictures. I draw comparisons between personal and cultural knowledge – themes and narratives that inform my everyday thinking. These interpretations are fundamentally concerned with image-text paradigms – the subtleties between visual thoughts and language. I look at these relationships, particularly the interplay between an image and its adjoined title, as concepts for my work. And I am always interested in working with humour and ridicule, ways of communicating that are disarming, and those aspects pointing to being simply human. It’s these elements, I believe, that will make the viewer become aware of themselves when reading the image’.