A. (All Thumbs) 1997

Al Taylor made this black and white photograph, A. (All Thumbs), at some point during his lifetime; he died in 1999. It's a photograph, but it feels like a drawing because of the stark contrast. Look at the way the thumbprints are so clearly defined and almost symmetrical, yet the painted forms on top are loose and imperfect. It’s about seeing how the physical and the abstract sort of bounce off each other. Taylor’s work often plays with the mundane, taking everyday objects and situations and turning them into something poetic. Take the painted circle behind the left thumb. It’s not quite a circle, is it? There's a thick, drippy quality to it, like he didn’t fuss over it too much. It reminds me of Richard Tuttle, another artist who finds beauty in the off-kilter. This piece is all about that tension, between precision and play, the hand and the eye, and the real and the imagined.