Strauss & co - 15 February 2020, Cape Town

24  MICHAEL TAYLOR SOUTH AFRICAN 1979– Bounce Back; Major Inspector; Low Profile; Dizzy Spell; Front to Back; Shoulder Soldier; Self Theatrical; Shame, Shame, Shame; Coach; nine 2015 acrylic on board 20 by 20cm each (9) R60 000 – 80 000 EXHIBITED The Voorkamer Gallery at Chandler House, Cape Town, Pink, 3 December 2015 to 31 January 2016. Produced and exhibited in 2015, this series of nine paintings follows on from Michael Taylor’s solo presentation at Volta New York in which he set about reimagining William Hogarth’s famous series A Rake’s Progress . In that body of work Taylor upends Hogarth’s narrative by adding “a touch of camp” resulting in the works “depicting an ironic view of masculinity, selfhood, and pleasure. Pooled together, his imagined and cheeky characters create a mishmash of male attitudes and surfaces that abound with visible traces of preliminary sketches and gestural marks.” 1 Of his titles, Taylor notes; “Generally, I choose titles which evoke something entirely different from what the image represents, or, I employ titles to reveal characteristics that are not obvious about the subject. This deliberate juxtaposing of image and text is aimed to address the viewer’s understanding of the relationship between a representation and its accompanying title…” 2 1.  https://www.michaeltaylorstudio.com/2015- volta-ny 2. Michael Taylor in Katherine Jacobs (2010) Michael Taylor Artbio , [Online] Available: http://artthrob.co.za/Artbio/Michael_Taylor_ by_Katharine_Jacobs.aspx 36