Joy Taylor US, b. 1952

Joy Taylor’s paintings, sparkling detail, daring composition and luminous color reflect the power of natural forces. 

"The still life composition of my imagination include a banana and a water-filled glass vase with a flower or two in it as they sit together on a make-believe table in front of a hanging fabric backdrop. Bananas are America’s favorite fruit, and since I eat one most days at lunch time, I am familiar with their fast-moving evolution as they bask motionless in my fruit bowl. Their peels change constantly, indicating their degree of ripeness, from green to yellow, soft brown spotted perfection to black and even purple. Patterns of tiny pale spots expand, darken, and blend together into large blobby maps of ripeness that indicate their inevitable path to decay if left uneaten. This dynamic quality of banana peels is enhanced when seen through the prism of water in the glass vase. Surreal shapes created by visual properties of refracted light in water, enhanced by the the shape of the vase and my love of fantastic forms, all come into play in these paintings. Sometimes the banana exists only inside the vase, trapped inside the composition that can barely contain its dynamic explosion of life forces. " - Joy Taylor