Philip Taaffe

Overview

I'm not so interested in the effort that it takes to have a self-promotional outlook. I believe in being quiet and making my work and just trying to make discoveries and let the painting evolve.

Stimulated by his travels around the world, the American artist Philip Taaffe, creates large colorful paintings incorporating enigmatic symbolism inspired by different cultures.

Download Artist's CV

Biography

In my own artistic development, I see myself as moving forward but constantly looking at material I have visited in the past, and coming to terms with that, or finding new ways to allow that to come around again, to enter the works in unanticipated ways. It’s this circular thinking, always moving forward, but as a wheel moves forward, as it rotates, it comes back around again.

Philip Taaffe was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1955. He studied at the Cooper Union in New York, gaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1977. Taaffe lived for several years in Naples and traveled widely in the Middle East, India, South America, and Morocco (where he collaborated with Mohammed Mrabet on the book Chocolate Creams and Dollars). He is best known for his process-based abstractions, blending iconography, design, and art-historical motifs from multiple cultures to create densely patterned works. An admirer of Matisse’s cut-outs and of Synthetic Cubism, Taaffe borrows works and designs both by well-known artists and...