Featured Artist Maxine Taylor

Painter Maxine Taylor shares her portfolio and speaks from the heart about being an artist. See more of her work by visiting her website.

 

 

The last couple of years since I retired from my day job have been amazing. After developing and establishing an identifiable style, I started to promote my art as Maxine Taylor Fine Arts and set goals to achieve. I paint what I feel and what I know while sticking to my vision.

 

 

I have painted for nearly 30 years and I know it is important to me that my work communicates with others. In 2012, and so far in 2013, I have participated in more exhibitions than ever before. Exhibits are my primary means of communicating with others. This is an achievement I never expected to realize in such a short time.

 

 

With the support of friends, family and art lovers, I have grown as an artist, confident in my work and its appreciation. When we put our heart and soul into what we love, goals are realized. What I know now is I am where I need to be as an artist. I have something to communicate and share with people and something to contribute to the creative culture.

 

 

As artists we take risks. We may not always be sure where the work is going or how it may be received. Yet I believe it is important to go with the flow and listen to your gut until it tells you to move in another direction or a new path presents itself organically. For that reason, I embrace the unknown and the passion I feel inside. What I know is I trust myself. I experiment more and believe I have evolved tremendously. The only expectation I have for myself and my work is that it will continue to thrive.

 

 

I pursued my career in earnest after moving to the Washington DC area from the San Francisco Bay area in 1973. Since moving to Baltimore City in 1997, my work changed significantly from landscapes to cityscape. Though I have accepted the challenge of acrylic medium, I miss the fluidity and spontaneity of my original work in watercolor.

 

 

As a way of expanding my technique and achieving the free flow of watercolor, I have experimented with dry pigment on wet canvas in addition to painting with acrylic paints. By 2009, I reintroduced watercolor into my acrylic paintings. It allows me to reproduce subtle color variations that I originally mastered using watercolor alone.

 

 

Although I was painting abstraction before 1997, city life has infiltrated all aspects of my sensibility, from the gritty street life, wild night life, to various aspects of the friendly neighborhood scene. Going back to the suburbs would never be the same.

 

Maxine Taylor invites you to follow her on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.