Artist Statement

My work is primarily about memory, innocence, and the mundane. In a world where visual stimuli is barraging us at every turn I hope to offer a quiet breath, a pause, a moment to reflect on something that seems mysterious and familiar all together. My initial process involves paying attention to people and the things that engage their hidden places. I try to harvest these pieces of people and use them to inform my creation of pictures and objects that feel like something that you remember from a day a long time ago. Old pieces of wood, wax and paper, ephemeral colors, and line drawings combine to make work that evokes this sense of intimacy and familiarity. I am interested in offering my viewers a chance to consider the beauty of a piece of paper, a strip of peeling paint, the shape of a human cell, the moment when you first wear new red shoes. These are the moments we miss when we try and take in all that is offered to us in every minute of life in this frenetic world. The art of being slow and really looking at things is something to be cultivated and my work hopes to provide a fertile environment to that kind of growth.

Biographical Statement

Phaedra Taylor was born and raised outside of Aberdeen, Scotland. In 2001 she received her BFA in sculpture from the University of North Texas where she was also awarded the Most Outstanding Student in the Visual Arts award. She went on to intern at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Tx. Her work has been exhibited in juried, group, and solo exhibitions, and is held in private collections of various individuals around the globe. Along with creating artwork she teaches children’s art classes, which has included camps at the North Carolina Museum of Art, and leads adult art workshops. She is currently living in Durham, North Carolina, while her husband is pursuing his doctorate at Duke University.