Maggie TAYLOR
Maggie TAYLOR is an American artist and photographer born in 1961 in Cleveland, Ohio. She studied Photography in the University of Florida and graduated a Master of Fine Art in 1987. After a first part of her career focusing on still life, since 1996 she has extended her work by manipulating digital pictures. Pioneer in the field of digital arts, Photoshop and other programs allow her to have all the latitude she needed to give free reins to her imagination.
In order to realize her photomontages, Maggie TAYLOR draws its subjects in a universe she has built thanks to her findings in garage sales, auctions and in the photography of the 19th century. Her camera is of the most original: a scanner. Maggie TAYLOR’s use of digital has conducted her to abandon the conventional ways for making pictures. She prefers to scan the objects that interest her, it is her way to photograph. Then, Maggie TAYLOR can imagine and compose photomontages in flavors exquisitely surrealistic.
Maggie TAYLOR's fantastic photomontages
If at the end, what was initially a combine of photos, has taken accents of painting, it is by a process over time. Maggie TAYLOR achieves this unique result after several months of work on a single photomontage. The photos used are juxtaposed, manipulated and some new are add to the starting project. They can come from scans or photographs directly taken by Maggie TAYLOR.
The digital photomontages of Maggie TAYLOR are linked to dreamlands and fantastic universes. We met there princes and princesses, monsters with extravagant looks and magical phenomena. Maggie TAYLOR summons characters from fairy tales of ANDERSEN, Charles PERRAULT, Lewis CARROL and GRIMM Brothers. She associates them inside photomontages that draw the attention of collectors and museums all around the world.
Instructive video on Maggie TAYLOR's creative process by Lynda.com for Linkedin
Museums and collections:
Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona
Davidson College Art Gallery, Davidson, Caroline du Nord
Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, Floride
Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas, Austin, Texas
High Museum, Atlanta, Géorgie
Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, Virginie Occidentale
Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, Alabama
Musée de la Photographie, Charleroi, Belgique
Museet For Fotokunst, Odense, Denmark
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, Louisiane
San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas
Prudential Insurance Company, Newark, New Jersey
The Appleton Museum of Art, Ocala, Floride
The Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, Californie
University of Louisville Photographic Archives, Louisville, Kentucky
University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada
Awards:
2005 : Ultimate Eye Foundation Grant
2004 : Santa Fe Center for Photography's Project Competition
2001 and 1996 : State of Florida Individual Artist's Grant
2000 : Grand Prize Winner, Photo District News/PIX Magazine Annual Digital Imaging Competition
Books selection:
No Ordinary Days, avec essai d’A.D. Coleman, University Press of Florida, 2013
Lewis Carroll, Alice's adventures in wonderland, illustré par Maggie Taylor, 2008
Solution Beginning with A, Modernbook, 2007
Maggie & Jerry, catalogue d’exposition Maggie Taylor & Jerry Uelsmann, 2007
