Damian Taylor
- Tutor (Research)
- Painting MA
Damian is an artist whose work explores new material possibilities of painting while examining overlooked histories of visual representation.
Damian studied painting at Chelsea and the Slade before completing a doctorate at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. He has held research fellowships at Yale, Oxford, the Huntington, and the Henry Moore Institute. While his main focus is on making and exhibiting art he has also published academic articles in journals such as October, The Art Bulletin, Oxford Art Journal, and the Sculpture Journal.
Gallery
More information
Research interests
Damian’s research explores the embodiment of human thought, the embeddedness of humanity in technology, and the play between the visual and the verbal. He is guided by a desire to question what it is to see and be seen, what it is to touch and to be touched, and the consequences of visibility or touch being withheld.
Practice
Damian’s recent work typically falls somewhere between painting and photography. It is driven by material exploration and is almost invariably underscored by a fascination with the animating power of light, by a play between the tangible and the intangible, and by experimenting with the complex and conflicting layers of time that can be drawn into the experience of an artwork.
Alongside his art he has published a modest number of academic articles on seemingly disparate themes across painting, sculpture, photography, and video in journals such as October, The Art Bulletin, Oxford Art Journal, and the Sculpture Journal.
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Articles (refereed)
Damian Taylor, ’Constable as a Voyage of Discovery’, The Art Bulletin 106, no. 1 (March 2024): 96–125
Damian Taylor, ‘Puppets Pulling Back’, October 179 (Winter 2022): 87–101
Damian Taylor, ‘Casting Negatives: Medardo Rosso’s Ecce Puer in Light of the Darkroom’, Sculpture Journal 28, no. 1 (May 2019): 55–74
Damian Taylor, ‘“Immersed in time”: Medardo Rosso and the Originality of Photomechanical Reproduction’, Oxford Art Journal 41, no. 3 (December 2018): 381–402
Damian Taylor, ‘“As if every particle was alive”: The Charged Canvas of Constable’s Hadleigh Castle’, British Art Studies 8 (2018), https://doi.org/10.17658/issn.2058-5462/issue-08/dtaylor
Damian Taylor, ‘Reflections’, Journal of Contemporary Painting 4, no. 1 (2018): 183–185
Damian Taylor, ‘Merry Christmas*: Linear Photography from the Early Carboniferous to an Early Dinner’, OAR: Oxford Artistic and Practice Based Research Platform 3 (December 2018): https://www.oarplatform.com/merry-christmas/
Solo Exhibitions (selected)
(2025) Things Past, Thames-side Gallery, London
(2022) Old Light (with Roger Ackling), Hidde van Seggelen, Hamburg, DE
(2019) Finger, Hidde van Seggelen Gallery, Hamburg, DE
(2017) SILVER, Martha, London
(2013) Developed, Museum Beelden aan Zee, The Hague, NL