Circle of Life - Barton Taylor

My personal work is an endeavour in pop-anthropology. Largely conceptual ideas-based work, equally tongue in cheek and reverential explorations of everyday things and moments. Cataloguing and fetishising common and generally mundane actions and objects. Inventories of things, trends, detritus, ephemera, beauty, ugliness, emptiness, stillness, processes, systems, details, subtleties.

I made the work ‘Circle of life’ during a miserable pandemic lockdown, a reflection on how repetitive everyday tasks were amplified by isolation. A playful look at how we dealt with the pandemic and lockdowns—confined, at 'home'.

The walls closed in and our worlds were suddenly very small, the grinding repetitions of the quotidian were amplified like a tap dripping in the night. For many the only escape was escapism itself. Therefore we escaped, we reflected, we paced like lions in a zoo, we drank, made bread, and went into battle over bog roll.

A grid along with a circular motif are utilised as tools to emphasise repetition. Mismatched scale—intricacies are intensified—further explores the experience of imbalance; everything is out of whack. The subject matter is unambiguous but open to interpretation.

Limited Edition Print 1/8

10% of this print sale goes to the IMAA