While maxing out his take on the “life-drawing-core” aesthetic, Patrick Tayler realised that the essence of being an artist is that this and that always seems to be here and there. Objects on the table, smudges on the canvas, slowly sinking dragées in the flesh of a homemade Jell-O served on a golden foil.
The painterly transformation transplants these fragments of reality, organised with awkward precision, into a new material so that the fatty paint preserves the inherent cringe of a child’s room. Here, there is no dry brush or dry eye—the outlines of the sponge cake dissolve into the ether under steamy gazes, as memories disintegrate when the madeleine is swallowed.
Still-life is the alpha of Patrick Tayler’s sweet world, the birthday cake, composed as a centrepiece on the table, which he tries to pull out of its safe position using oil paint as an Archimedean point. The fondant fancies, doubled by his spectacles, crumble under his nerdy gaze, just as the napkins shrink in the reflection of various cut glasses—spectacle overcoming material.