Christopher TAYLOR: Woodlands

Mind Set Art Center is honored to present a solo exhibitions in July: "Woodlands" by English photographer Christopher TAYLOR. The show is set to launch on July 8, at 3 p.m. We extend a warm invitation to you to join us.  

English photographer Christopher TAYLOR is presenting his brand new series of work in “Woodlands”, his first exhibition at Mind Set Art Center since 2019’s “Steinholt”. TAYLOR shoots films with his Rolleiflex, a fully-manual mechanical camera, and he develops his negatives and make darkroom prints by hand. TAYLOR was deeply inspired by a showing of Max Ernst’s semi-abstract painting of the forest at the Tate in the 1980’s. He vividly remembers the air of menace as Ernst paints captured birds as a metaphor for himself and the repression in a patriarchal society. He has since made a habit of walking in the mountains and forests to capture images of interest. His photographs of the woodlands encapsulate his emotion and state of mind at the moment of capturing. His body wanders through the woods, seeking for compositions, his mind reflecting on his thoughts, his hands clicking the shutter at the moment when everything aligns, burning an image of trees onto the negative ---- a projection of his formless, spiritual self. TAYLOR has traveled to many countries and cities over the years, and his “Woodlands” series has gradually expanded with the shifting of time and space. One standout photograph is “Aveyron, France”, which frames a large tree from a bottom-up perspective, with its fine, densely woven branches in stark contrast with the thick, inky black tree trunk. A similar perspective in “Miaoli, Taiwan”, however, renders a completely different aesthetic. The sporadic black dots across the frame seems to render the humid forest in Miaoli into a Chinese ink brush painting. The tree branches and waving reeds have been transformed into small dots and cursive brushstrokes, exhibiting a uniquely eastern spirit. TAYLOR’s images are both the recording of the outside worlds of trees and forest and an internal projection of his spiritual world, one that is quiet, yet rich in thoughts, as he has stated, “I like to imagine an arboreal resurgence closing over the world, a realization perhaps of Ernst’s dark vision.”