MIKE DAVIS AND HEIDI TAILLEFER AT JOSHUA LINER GALLERY
Posted on 26. May, 2009 by ART BATTERY GROUP in THE ART HEADS SPEAK OUT
Mike Davis
Stories From the Other Side of the Bridge
Heidi Taillefer
An Uncanny Lineup of Serendipitous Connections
Reception Saturday May 30th from 6-9 pm
548 West 28th Street
3rd Floor
New York, NY 10001
T 212.244.7415
Gallery Hours
Tuesday — Saturday
11 — 6PM
Shortly after being born in 1961 in Jacksonville, Florida, Mike Davis’ family moved to Miamisburg, Ohio; at the age of 11 they moved again to Cincinnati, Ohio, where his parents continue today to reside.
Having no formal education, Davis learned to paint by “scamming” his way into a job doing theatrical scenery; claiming he knew how to paint, when in all actuality had no idea. However, the “scam” was a success and soon Davis was going out on his own to work on various projects involving stage scenery, props, signage, model making, character costumes, etc. Eventually, he realized something was not right and had to make a change in his profession.
It was in 1988 that Davis made the leap from theater related jobs to tattooing. 1992 marked the opening of Everlasting Tattoo located in San Francisco, California. Tattooing has greatly led Davis to where he is today as an artist. Tattooing served to improve his drawing skills, and lead him to consider, for the first time, that creating art could be a way to make a living. Yet, Davis’ tattoo work is very different from his paintings, deriving from different influences and subject matters.
Artist Statement
Since as long as I can remember I have possessed artistic skills of some form or another. As a kid in school I was often referred to as the “artist,” drawing monsters, robots blowing thing up, and other weird images.
It wasn’t until around 1999 when I began seriously painting. Over time my work has evolved in terms of my technique, mostly from studying other artist’s pieces. I have been greatly influenced by older art in general, and more specifically that of Van Eyck and Bruegel.
My paintings are often a reflection of my experiences in life. Additionally my interest in history, evident from my collection of military helmet and artifacts from the Civil War and World War II, makes its way into my work, even if it is on a minor scale.
One of my greatest influences in my work and for myself is my mother. Her constant involvement in one project or another ranging from woodworking to hand-tooling leather masterpieces to making clothing and toys for myself and my siblings to remodeling our home, the list goes on, has motivated me to try new things and continue to create.
Born in Montreal, Quebec, Heidi Taillefer began drawing at the age of 3, and was brought up in a family rich in creative talent. Always attracted to the bizarre and unusual, she was fascinated by strange animal specimens and haunting turn of the century side show oddities. As a child she continued her pursuit with ten years of private art lessons, where she developed skills in watercolor painting. Taillefer has been influenced by a number of sources such as nature and quirky thrift shop objects and obscurities. She is also influenced by all manners of artistic genres from surrealism to the abstract.
After pursuing a degree in Humanistic studies at McGill University in the early 90′s, Taillefer began taking numerous trips to developing countries which turned her focus to the more universal issues of the human condition within the context of modern society.
Taillefer’s tastes range from the ridiculous and the absurd to the sacred and sublime. She pursues the deeper meaning of things while possessing a strong sense of humor. Taillefer paints mostly about philosophical observations on life, which are drawn out of personal experience, and parlayed into an exploration of more universal issues.
Artist Statement
Heidi Taillefer’s work is an original creative fusion of classical figurative painting, surrealism, contemporary realism, and mythology combined with popular figurative traditions ranging from Victorian romanticism to science fiction. It is consonnant with some of the early 20th century surrealists such as Max Ernst and Giorgio DeChirico. Taillefer painstakingly paints subjects comprised of precise, seemingly incongruous objects characterized as symbolic, forming a complex composite of various elements and adds a contemporary spin to often classical icons. Depicting mechanized subjects placed in natural settings, her work has acts as a nostalgic embrace of the past, as seen through the lens of a culture racing forward at high speed, fitted with massive technological advancement.
While using a language of mechanistic imagery, she address eternal issues on the human condition borrowing from mythologies throughout different eras and cultures. Taillefer’s work is an attempt to combine subjective philosophical experience with the more absolute and calculable elements espoused by traditional science, merging biology with engineering through a discrete assembly of concrete elements. She uses mechanism as a language, mirroring the ubiquity of technology in the world, in an effort to marry primordial human essence with the explosive expansion of the “machine”.
