PACE TAYLOR // Breathe when you need to

On view June 10–July 10, 2022
Opening reception Friday, June 10 (5–7pm)

Under this mask, another mask. I will never be finished removing all these faces. —Claude Cahun

Nationale is pleased to announce its second solo exhibition with Portland-based and represented artist Pace Taylor. This series of new works began as the artist’s earnest attempt at a conversation with the Surrealist gender-nonconforming artist Claude Cahun, about self-presentation and self-preservation. Where Cahun consistently wove the image of a mask through their work, Taylor here further channels the concept of masking as a multi-dimensional term that relates to their creative process, to autism, and to gender identity. Breathe when you need to presents an intimate look at the domestic space as a site of unmasking. Taylor’s stylized portraits, done in their characteristically warm hues of oranges, pinks, and reds, work towards depicting masks, in their multitude forms, as intentional tools in an attempt to lay bare one’s authentic core. The self-portraits on display act as proxies, promising a way of controlling their narrative and offering a means to expand beyond their confinement.

There exists something so deeply personal about being in a body that, by way of moving through the world, is openly shared with friends and strangers alike. These points of communion are at the forefront of Taylor’s new suite of paintings. Two figures share a moment beside one another in bed, stringently not making eye contact, while two others sit in the nude, seemingly engaged in a thoughtful conversation. In the bather (a very cold winter) the figure tenderly folds in on itself while bathing, half obscured, while the figure in enter daydream is portrayed in a semi slumber, covered by the draping bed sheets yet somehow still accessible to us as outside viewers. Eye Contact I and II are extreme close-ups of two larger-than-life faces. These drawings leer out at each other with crinkled foreheads and narrowed eyes, their gazes not quite meeting, yet alluding to the ingrained challenge of looking directly at yourself, both literally and metaphorically. In this half-veiled manner, these soft and self-aware instances of space sharing become focal points of reflection for the figural characters as much as they do for their intended audience.

Each of these works alludes to the at times painful feat of being alone in your body. The reveal of these typically hidden moments is what brings rise to a new confidence within these honest drawings, a sweet attempt to regain autonomy. There is an agreement of belonging even in the midst of complex periods of individual transition. We may be alone in our bodies and minds, but Breathe when you need to demonstrates that there is a grace to sharing the burden with others.

Pace Taylor lives and works in Portland, OR. They received their BFA in Digital Arts from the University of Oregon (2015) and have since shown their work regionally, including at Nationale, Upfor, and Oregon Contemporary (formally Disjecta), and in Los Angeles at La Loma Projects. They were recently selected to participate in the Ford Family Foundation’s Golden Spot Residency at Caldera, Tropical Contemporary’s Transformation Residency, Centrum’s Emerging Artist Residency, and received a 2022 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission. Their work is on permanent display at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Health Sciences Building. Pace Taylor is represented by Nationale.

PRESS & MORE
Pace Taylor at Nationale, Hannah Krafcik, June 7, 2022, Oregon ArtsWatch