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Jo Taylor is an artist who works with language and the ideas it conveys. Her sources include overheard conversations, handwritten notes, letters and novels. Through her work she reveals the rhythms, subtleties and significance of different styles of writing and speaking. She sees her work as both questioning and celebrating the ritual patterns of language we use in everyday life. Her work also explores the feelings and ideas that language is used to express. Through her approach and skilful use of materials Jo Taylor transforms her subject matter into something that is beautiful and surprising. Her work is mainly stitched, either on paper or on found vintage fabrics. She also draws and writes directly onto walls and creates handmade slides for projection. Although she usually works on her own, she also collaborates with other artists, designers and architects. In All is well here (2011-) Jo Taylor embroiders her father's handwriting. The texts are taken from letters written to her during the last ten years of his life. Stitched in white wool on white paper these pieces form a portrait of her father. Through the work glimpses of his character and outlook on life can be seen. In her Last Lines series (2007-), she takes the final sentences from various novels and embroiders them in cross-stitch on paper. In this work she explores the nature of last words and how the novelist says goodbye. Now that these final words stand alone we can focus on them and their meaning, both in relation to the novel they are quoted from and in their own right. The social ritual of gossip and the styles of speech used for it are the subject of another ongoing series of work, Gossip (2004-). Through the painstaking stitching of glass beads onto paper and the embroidering of vintage fabric in wool Jo Taylor transforms the throwaway phrases of idle chat into works that demand lasting attention. |