Tenacious Tree Huggers

It might sound a bit like a hippy festival, but don’t be fooled: “The Tenacious Tree Huggers” is the title of the solo presentation of acclaimed painter Michael Taylor at Whatiftheworld in Cape Town.

Michael Taylor’s new series of paintings portray a cast of awkward characters and their relationship to their personal environment. These character sketches depict individuals struggling against the unpredictable ways of nature. However, they aren’t only confounded by the shifting occurrences within their environments. They’re also troubled by their own individual natures.

Through facial expressions and the powerful language of physical exaggeration, the portraits express misguided ideas around environmental “friendliness”, feelings of irresponsibility, indifference towards a changing world, and the concept of ageing.

The ironic exhibition title invites viewers to look at the body of work as a parody of our relationship with nature. Its derogatory reference is used as a satirical pun emphasising the ease with which we quip about stereotypes.

Taylor approaches the act of painting in the same way that he does drawing. From his memory, unfettered and informal manifestations of imagined and illustrative thoughts and narratives are rendered. Reference material is used merely to trigger visual associations that are then employed to create new realities and fictions.

The exhibition opened on 20 April 2011.

More information: info@whatiftheworld.com, www.whatiftheworld.com