Alison Elizabeth Taylor (born 1972) is an American

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

based out of

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. She is known for her marquetry hybrid work combining

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

-style

marquetry Marquetry (also spelled as marqueterie; from the French ''marqueter'', to variegate) is the art and craft of applying pieces of wood veneer, veneer to a structure to form decorative patterns or designs. The technique may be applied to case furn ...

with

painting Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

and

collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

to depict contemporary subject matter. Her exhibitions have been covered in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', and ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...

''.

Works and career

Taylor creates images using

which she has expanded to include painting and photographs. She subverts inlay's decorative status by constructing narratives that are neither decorative, nor memorial, nor facile, but rather freezing the abject, mundane and ordinary in time. Marquetry was first popularized under Louis XIV in the 17th century in the unprecedented luxury of Versailles. By portraying these subjects in a technique associated with opulence and privilege, the artist pays respect to the subject and challenges the expectations and connotations associated with the material. Taylor won the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition for her work ''Anthony Cuts under the Williamsburg Bridge, Morning,'' which is subsequently on display at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. As a result of her win, Taylor will be commissioned to portray a remarkable living American for the National Portrait Gallery’s collection. Alison Elizabeth Taylor is a graduate of

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, School of the Arts.

References

1972 births Living people 21st-century American artists Columbia University School of the Arts alumni 21st-century American women artists {{US-artist-stub