Taylor Simmons

Taylor Simmons(1990), Texas.He is an American actor. Quotes If you look at it and you feel the rhythm of what’s going on, that says it’s successful. More so than if everything was exact. A lot of times, I’ll go digging on eBay, I’m used to seeing stuff from like the 60s, 50s, 40s — but now people are starting to do 80s and 90s. I’m really into southern culture from that era, because I grew up in the 90s. I’ll go look up old cookout photos, because they’re very rich. It’s just somebody’s barbecue photos, but the further removed we are, the more precious it feels. When I first moved out there, my first friend and I would hang out all the time in school. One day he came up to me and was like, ‘We can’t hang out anymore. My parent’s said I’m allergic to you’. When Black folks actually started to move out there, it was exciting because the music was different, the style was different, everything was different. I was finally seeing people that looked like me. My tees were so tall, oh my God. I think about how many books there are documenting white subcultures, like punk. We have the same niches in the Black community, it just doesn’t have names, so it’s not as celebrated or documented. Honestly, we need a Black version of Wolfgang Tillmans. I think that’s why I focus so much on body and clothes in my paintings, because those little signifiers are super important. If you look at old Renaissance paintings, the way someone was dressed was always so important. It showed who they were. I love that red, the dirt in Georgia is that same red. It’s iron oxide. That color has always spoken to me. It feels very warm and has a lot of history to it. It’s nostalgic for me. It’s like a tender moment — one friend holding up another friend.” In that world, “a man can only really touch or support another man in these instances. So I thought I’d make a painting of it. It still kind of sits in my work now, but I like to leave it a little bit more vague so that the viewer can decide what’s going on. I’m not telling you what’s happening. You get to decide. I painted this gang member for my solo show. Homie’s got the face tattoos, and he’s throwing gang signs. People that saw it here, and kind of knew what it was. But in London people were like, ‘Is that a monk?’, because he’s bald. I thought it was really interesting, because gang members do share certain things with monks. They have rules. They have a brotherhood. We think of gang members as being bad, but they are just trying to survive in their community. I had this reckoning: life is really short. I was like, all right, let me actually pursue this. There is this old David Hammons interview I found, and he says something like, you can tell when an artist is making work to be loved, and when they’re making something that is just the spirit speaking through them. That stuck with me. If I’m thinking about it too much, I’m trying to be loved. If I’m just painting, it’s real. It’s true. It flows. It’s just me moving. I’m not asking for permission. Taylor Simmons is painting vibrant, nostalgic portraits of Black life, February 14 2023 External Links Category:Actors Category:1990 births Category:Texas