Artist Statement

With weathered journals in hand, explorers have long made notes and sketches of their travels for science, art, and personal record. I adore these distressed, historic sketchbooks and now make my own, continuing my interest in creating illustrated handmade books. My “sketches” spring from a desire to incorporate more of my daily experience into my art, and more art into my daily life.

These artworks depict the world in front of my camera and include hand illustrated drawings and watercolors on the print surface to portray images from my imagination— “scenes I wish I’d seen” (like chatting with Carlos Castaneda’s coyote friends). This creation of imagined worlds is a freedom photographers share with other artists such as painters, poets, and writers of fiction.

I use historic processes to mirror antiquated sketchbooks— including cyanotypes, distressed silver gelatin prints, applied silver emulsions, as well as pigment prints with mixed media on watercolor paper. Some artworks are presented as full-page spreads in open books, and others are loose pages “torn” from bound journals. I’ve always enjoyed revealing signs of my hand in artwork as fingerprints, brush marks, drawn lines and imperfections akin to those found in historic journals.

Just as the sketches of explorers brought new discoveries and revelations into the living rooms of viewers back home, these pages offer glimpses of previously unforeseen worlds.

Artist Bio

Brian Taylor is known for his innovative explorations of alternative photographic processes including historic 19th Century printing techniques, mixed media, and hand made books. His work has been exhibited nationally and abroad in numerous solo and group shows and is included in the permanent collections of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House, Rochester, NY.

Brian served as the Executive Director of the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, CA for 4 1/2 years, retiring in 2019 to return to his art practice in the studio.  He received his B.A. Degree in Visual Arts from the University of California at San Diego, an M.A. from Stanford University, and his M.F.A. from the University of New Mexico and served as a Professor of Photography for over 35 years, and Chair of the Department of Art and Art History at San Jose State University