Alumnus's art tackles tumultuous past

Drugs and alcohol may have driven Sean Taylor out of Richmond during the 1990s, but his tumultuous past and art are bringing him back.

Taylor, who graduated from the University of Richmond in 1986 and Virginia Commonwealth University in 1994 with degrees in sociology and history, respectively, will debut his artwork - 25 oil paintings and constructional collages - at the Ghostprint Gallery at 220 Broad St. on Oct. 1 in an exhibit called "Sean Taylor: owes me money." He said the name was a metaphor for the idea that people are indebted to the excess of their past.

"My life sort of imploded in the mid-90s," Taylor said. "I just started everything over again. I left Virginia. It was sort of a dark period at the end of Richmond. Recreational drug and alcohol use became a way of life."

But Taylor got away from the things that were bringing him down.

"I'm feeling much better now," he said with a laugh. He went to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and studied painting, something he always thought he was meant to do.

"I always wanted to go to art school," Taylor said. "I ended up at Richmond. I started hanging out with people who should've been in art school. When I moved away, someone asked me: 'What do you want to do? What brings you joy?' I said, 'painting.'

"It just took me some time. But any life up until I became a painter gave me my crazy take on the world."

Taylor described the exhibit, which chronicles his life here, as a mix of "humor and debauchery as well as struggle," and also said that it was unavoidable.

"I'm digging back in to see what happened with my young adult life," Taylor said. "My goal is to show my art in every city I've lived in."

Born in London, Taylor grew up in the United States. When he was a teenager, his family moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Then the Falklands War began.

"It was a bad time to be an American there," Taylor said, but he loved the frenetic, fast-paced, go-all-night-long lives of the Argentineans.

His time there during the reign of a military regime set him up to add politically charged motifs such as the Cold War and general military imagery to his most recent work.

"I have an Icarus painting with me as Icarus about to be launched by 1950s air traffic controllers," he said. "I didn't end up working at the U.N., but I paint about it. Maybe someone working there has one of my paintings."

The "Sean Taylor: owes me money" exhibit will feature a number of Taylor's most cherished pieces, including a self portrait, "Circa '86."

"It's a cross between a self-portrait and Hollywood headshot that someone would have done of himself," Taylor said. "I'm branding myself in that picture. It's an image of narcissism and a bit of irony in that I'm saying, 'Here I'm my wonderful youthful self ... and sorry about the money we owe you.'"

On the surface, here's this young, good-looking guy, but underneath there is a fake quality to our culture."

Another piece called "Wonder Woman and Leaky Faucet" is about as straightforward as it sounds.

"She's a good American image," Taylor said. "She is this fantastic sexual dream that is somehow wrapped up in America itself. She should be put back up on a pedestal, I think."

Geraldine Duskin, the co-owner of Ghostprint Gallery, said she became interested in showing Taylor's work when she saw his collection of modernly interpreted mythological creatures.

"He has his own very personal view of the world and he definitely shows that in his work - in this collection, especially, because it'll show his tempestuous youth in Richmond," Duskin said.

Taylor has made a business out of what he loves and has been through in his life so far, but he said he still had a long way to go.

"The Pennsylvania Academy is very conventional, technique oriented," Taylor said. "It was all about painting right. Now, I'm trying to forget all of that."

He would even like to show his work in one of the galleries at the University of Richmond someday, he said.

Contact staff writer Jordan Trippeer at jordan.trippeer@richmond.edu