an art space for Dave Taylor: Ted

Ted... Ted is one of those long running projects that becomes a huge part of your life, to the extent of personification. He began to take shape December 2009. Prior to this, I had built a frame for a painting which ended out not fitting. The frame sat around for a while before I mounted chicken wire into it. Then is sat again until that fateful December day. Ted's head is based from the Easter Island statues. The field surrounding his head in the framed area is an image transfer process using acrylic gel and photocopies of pictures of mass graves. While at Ikea waiting to make a return I came up with an idea to build Ted's frame into a kind of monolith, sort of like 2001 a Space Odyssey. The monolith is built from a 2x12 stud wall, sheathed in plywood, covered with canvas and painted. At one point I thought of covering the monolith in tar, in fiberglass, and considered resin(big surprise there) Another inspiration came after watching Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams. I sketched out ideas for images that could be a sort of Polynesian version of cave paintings. I finished the paintings September of 2012. A final protective coat will be applied by the end of 2013, but I can finally say that Ted is essentially done.

It's bittersweet really. Ted's been both a joy and pain but that's how passion projects go. He is 6'-4.5" tall, 4'-4"wide, and weighs a virtual ton.