Taryn Millar

Recent works by Taryn Millar continue with her project to unhinge and destabilize anthropocentric modes of understanding and practice that oftentimes lead to the abuse and destruction of the natural environment. Instead, Millar explores a poetic space in which inanimate objects and the natural environment are prioritized and the perspective shifted to possibilities beyond the preoccupations of human-centered living. 

Cutting the Ground From Under Your Feet, Above and Beyond and Social Dissonance frame moments in time from various viewpoints, evoking free-floating weightlessness open to multiple interpretations. So, while the idiom to ‘cut the ground from under someone’s feet’ usually implies a cutting argument that undermines someone’s ideas or opinions, by contrast, these quiet works gently evoke freer, more inclusive ways of seeing and being in the world.

 Untitled 1 & 2 memorialize utilitarian farming objects in oil paint, imbuing their subjects with agency and personality.

 In Phalaenopsis, the silhouette of a delicate orchid is revealed with white chalk on black sandpaper. The rough ground of the sandpaper destroys the soft implement of the chalk while simultaneously bringing the Phalaenopsis Orchid to life: an allusion to the violent yet beautiful clash of destruction and creation that is the cycle of life.