The Peabody Group #32 1992

Al Taylor made "The Peabody Group #32" using watercolor and graphite on paper. It's not dated, but let's dive in! Taylor’s process is all about revealing the way things are made. Here, the paint is thin, almost ghostly. The colours are washed out, stains rather than flat, opaque planes. You can see the paper, its texture, its off-white tone, all part of the dance. Look at that blue splotch towards the left. It anchors the whole composition, a focal point amidst the watery trails and scribbled annotations. It’s unexpected, almost cartoonish, yet it's integrated into this delicate web of lines and stains. Taylor brings this sensibility of the provisional to the whole enterprise of art making. It’s like art is an experiment, a game, a way of seeing, all at once. If you're into this kind of playful exploration of materials, you might also dig into the work of someone like Dieter Roth. Both of them were fascinated by the possibilities of process.