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Biography - Douglas E. Taylor
Mixed Media and Printmaking Artist

Douglas E. Taylor, American visual artist, poet and writer, was born in Oregon in the year 1956. At the beginning of his art education, Taylor studied illustration and painting at Oregon College of Art in Ashland, Oregon and was trained in representational styles and excelled in painting, including transparent watercolor, oil painting and acrylic painting. In 1986, he studied at the Maryland Institute of Art, in Baltimore, Maryland. 

Taylor achieved his Master of Fine Arts degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri in 1989 and participating in a progressive printmaking program at that university, he concentrated on a wide variety of printmaking processes and began to combine them, creating rich layered surfaces on large scale monoprints.  He refers to these as "mixed-process" monoprints.

Before graduate school, Taylor had been producing edition etching prints for over seven years.   At Washington University he began exploring the image through the rapid progression of the monoprint (unique and one-of-a-kind).

To accommodate his larger print sizes, in 1991, he built and designed his own motorized etching press with a 30 by 72 inch press bed. Combining numerous printmaking processes in one monoprint is a progressive concept and contributes to the unique qualities that only can be achieved through the rich and subtle layers of printmaking. Taylor combines the processes of etching, including nonacid techniques, several forms of relief printing, collagraph, dry-point, photocopy transfer, monotype and offset counter proofs. 

Larger format artworks are done as mixed-media on canvas.  Usually these tactile artworks integrate layers of collage and acrylic painting. The collage elements are various pieces of his printed images.  These fragments of his printmaking are cut and torn and then combined with a variety of Oriental rice papers. Since 1986, Taylor has been experimenting with iridescent and iridescent interference acrylic paints. These materials can create a magic sense of subtle animation, causing colors to shift and change with the viewer's relationship with the light source and the character and quality of that light.

"As I have grown older I have realized and appreciated the influence my father has had, on my creative process. My father was a blacksmith and farrier (shoeing of horses) before his retirement.  During my life, I have watched him encounter situations where the tools he used didn't quite resolve the problem he was dealing with.  When he couldn't buy what he needed, he would make it; fabricate it, sometimes from raw materials.  I have admired that ability."

Taylor's versatility as an artist has enabled him to teach a wide variety of studio and some academic art courses on the university and college levels from 1982 to 1998. Teaching he found, was another form of creative expression and allowed him to share his unique experiences and processes.

In 1990, Douglas Taylor came to Lake Tahoe's north shore.  The beautiful alpine lake is truly a blue jewel set in the high Sierra Nevada range on the California and Nevada border at six-thousand feet above sea level. He was and still is, inspired by the poetic metaphors of nature and his endeavors to a good life as a human being.  He explores innovative aesthetics and formal issues with subjects that relate to nature woven with symbolism of the human condition. He writes poetry that accompanies his visual art.

In 1992 he created what became, Vista Gallery, in Tahoe Vista, California. The unique art space and business allowed him to express himself through the creative process of a commercial enterprise. The gallery features original art by over thirty accomplished contemporary artists and is a full service custom picture frame shop as well.  See www.vistagallery.com for more information.

In 2009, he sold Vista Gallery & Framing to fulfill his dream of working as a full-time artist, now living in the beautiful Bitterroot Valley of Montana.  His art has been represented in many galleries in the western states, presently at Vista Gallery at Lake Tahoe and is seeking representation in Montana; Ketchum, Idaho;  Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; the San Francisco Bay Area, California;  Spokane Washington; Jackson Hole, Wyoming; Park City, Utah;  Aspen, Colorado, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and many other places where his market may exist.

Click here to link to Taylor’s more artist history (education story and printmaking story), resume’, representation, and calendar of exhibits.

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