Taylor Stoneman
Taylor Stoneman creates intuitively, known for her painterly and impressionist style. Born in Arizona and now residing in Northern California, her oil and acrylic paintings are rooted in these two spaces and the land in between: covering scenes from the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the roiling California coast. Her work studies the meaning of wilderness and its imperative role in our lives, both within biological ecosystems and as a solid place for our bodies and hearts to land. Her work has been juried into exhibitions at Voss Gallery and SFWA Gallery in San Francisco.
I am a painter working in oil and acrylic. My art examines how humans have manipulated the land we live on and how we see (or don’t see) that which exists around us. We often look past natural and structural additions to the local environment because they are so common to our present existence (e.g., transmission lines, dams, non-native plants). In contrast, my paintings place these appendages and their impacts in full view. I enjoy thinking through themes of what belongs in a physical space (and what does not), how belonging is created or imposed, which land we choose to alter or destroy and which we choose to preserve, and how we might societally and individually account for and, in some cases, reverse the impact of such alterations. My work often looks very closely at a subject to focus on its detail almost to the point of abstraction, while still being rooted in reality.
I am currently working on a series of eucalyptus-inspired paintings on linen. Eucalypts are synonymous with the Bay Area today, but their presence here embodies a form of colonialism, transplanted from their native Australian shores to Northern California in the 1800s. Eucalyptus trees’ fast-growing and fire-prone nature, which tends to crowd out California’s native flora, have stirred debates regarding the invasive species for decades. At once they are both beautiful and destructive, containing the same nuance as much of our cultural present.
