Camilla Taylor: Dry Tree

About

Track 16 presents Los Angeles-based artist Camilla Taylor in her solo exhibition, “Dry Tree.” The show, her second solo exhibition at the gallery, runs through February 25.

Presenting a new body of work, the show includes sculptures, prints, and textiles which evoke multilayered conceptual themes stemming from one idea: a tree. Taking the concept of a tree, both “tree of life” and also the genealogical “family tree,” Taylor creates quiet, vulnerable work. A genealogical tree does not necessarily matter in everyday life, but family lineage is quietly present. This theme of a past presence is demonstrated through the materials. Nearly all of the materials for the artworks are salvaged. The past life of the materials, which existed in other places and were touched by other hands, is not apparent, yet there is a sense of haunting, or hiddenness in them. The works additionally reflect on the effects of human activity during the Anthropocene geological time period, a time period that is killing off the fecundity and ecosystems of the Earth; the activity symbolically leaves in its path a dry tree in the dead of winter.