Biography
Taylor Robenalt attended Southern Methodist University for her BFA in bronze casting and stone carving. She then received a graduate assistantship at the University of Georgia accomplishing her MFA in ceramics in May 2011. She is currently a visiting full time professor at Ringling College of Art and Design and has taught at State College of Florida, Auburn University and Columbus State University as an adjunct professor. Taylor was a long-term artist resident at Odyssey Clayworks. In addition Taylor has participated in many national and international ceramic shows. She has been part of multiple panels at NCECA as well as participated in many NCECA shows. She has co-taught a workshop at Penland School of Crafts in 2018 and has been a visiting artist at many Universities. Taylor won the NCECA International Residency Award in 2019 and studied at A.I.R. Vallauris, France for a month. 2020 was a particularly rewarding year, because she received the Halo Fellowship Award to help her install her first solo museum show at the Canton Museum of Art. This year, Taylor is curating two large ceramic shows, one at Blue Spiral Gallery in Asheville, NC, and a large animal themed show at the Canton Museum of Art in Ohio. Taylor has received many scholarships including tuition waivers to Monte Verde, Costa Rica, Cortona, Italy, Tokoname, Japan, Watershed, Maine, Penland, North Carolina and Red Lodge, Montana.
Artist Statement
Art has been an obsession of mine since I was a little girl. It allows me an outlet to represent a part of me that I have a hard time putting into words – therefore, I create. Making art has become an intuitive and reactionary process. I often start with a loose image of what I want to create, but I’ve learned to allow space for freedom to respond to materials and form during the production of the work. I use human forms, flora and fauna because these three motifs allow me a direct way to illustrate certain emotions. I use clay as my medium because it offers an immediate way to work with form, volume and surface.
My new body of work features clusters of animals and flowers constructed out of porcelain with glaze, gold luster and underglaze applications. In these pieces, the animal heads appear to be bursting out of a heavy cluster of flowers. With each piece created in the series, the flower clusters become more abundant and ornate, and the animals seem to multiply as if the work itself is alive and fertile. The overall black and white color scheme and the pops of color in the pieces are all important to the work. These color motifs attempt to express all the emotions that I personally face on a daily basis. The coloring of the entire body of work is a comment on how life can become so rigid in the midst of the fluidity of growth, death and rebirth. The bright colors of the flowers illustrate the blossoming of life and offer a contrast to the rigidity of everyday responsibility. The final touches of gold luster offer an overall sense of purity to the body of work and allude to the strong sense of achievement and pride that comes with positively facing life on a day-to-day basis. I view the work as a metaphor for how life is always transforming itself – constantly bringing forth a new chapter of unforeseen existence.
The images I use in my work, especially the repetition of specific animals, have started to take on a more personal meaning in the work. These animals are daily occurrence such as the rabbit, dog and bird. Each animal has a specific meaning to me that relate to an emotional narrative: the dog represents loyalty and unconditional love, the bird represents vibrancy and freedom and the bunny represents shyness and reclusiveness. The flowers represent the purest form of growth from a plant and that idea of purity is why the flowers appear so heavily in my work. The final touch of my personality in this body of work is represented by the appearance of the hand. The self-awareness represented by my hand making another hand allows me to express all of these emotions in this work. Overall I foresee this work becoming quite large in scale to start pushing the idea of all the emotions I feel in a day being explored through form.
Recent Shows and/or Exhibitions
2023
Moments from Skopelos, Appalachian Center Of Craft, Smithville, Tennessee
2022
Thinking With Animals, Canton Museum of Art, Canton, OH
Figuratively Speaking, Companion Gallery, Humboldt, TN
Cup Invitational, Companion Gallery, Humboldt, TN
West Coast Clay, Art Center of Sarasota, Sarasota, FL
Annual Ringling College Faculty Exhibition, Lois and David Stulberg Gallery, Sarasota, FL
Art Of The Garden, Florida CraftArt Gallery, St. Petersburg, FL
Not So Guilty Pleasures, Kondos Gallery, Sacrament, CA
Beauty and The Beast, Blue Spiral Gallery, Asheville, NC
Yunomi Show, Clay Akar, Iowa City, Iowa
Annual Ringling College Faculty Exhibition, Lois and David Stulberg Gallery, Sarasota, FL
2021
Kinship, Abmeyer and Wood, Online platform
Social Distance Residency Show, Gulf Coast State Gallery, FL
Rough Around the Edges, Spaaces Gallery, Sarasota, FL
The Dinner Party, State of Art Gallery, Sarasota, FL
Crafts in The Air, International Exhibition, Chaulalongkron, Taiwan
Thinking With Animals 2, NCECA online show
Expressive, In Tandem Gallery, Bakersville, NC
Clay: A Southern Census, Clay Center of New Orleans, NO
Southern Miss Ceramics, University of Southern Mississippi, MI
2020
SARTQ Retrospective, Art Center of Sarasota, Sarasota, FL
Collaborations, SPAACES, Sarasota, FL
Instructor Showcase, Arrowmont School of Arts and Craft, Gatlinburg, TN
Instructor Show, Appalachian Center of Craft, Smithville, TN
Thinking With Animals, NCECA Show, Richmond, VA
The Dark and The Light, Linda Berry Stein University, Jacksonville, FL
Symbolic Narratives, Canton Museum of Art, Canton, Ohio
Taylor Robenalt attended Southern Methodist University for her BFA in bronze casting and stone carving. She then received a graduate assistantship at the University of Georgia accomplishing her MFA in ceramics in May 2011. She is currently a visiting full time professor at Ringling College of Art and Design and has taught at State College of Florida, Auburn University and Columbus State University as an adjunct professor. Taylor was a long-term artist resident at Odyssey Clayworks. In addition Taylor has participated in many national and international ceramic shows. She has been part of multiple panels at NCECA as well as participated in many NCECA shows. She has co-taught a workshop at Penland School of Crafts in 2018 and has been a visiting artist at many Universities. Taylor won the NCECA International Residency Award in 2019 and studied at A.I.R. Vallauris, France for a month. 2020 was a particularly rewarding year, because she received the Halo Fellowship Award to help her install her first solo museum show at the Canton Museum of Art. This year, Taylor is curating two large ceramic shows, one at Blue Spiral Gallery in Asheville, NC, and a large animal themed show at the Canton Museum of Art in Ohio. Taylor has received many scholarships including tuition waivers to Monte Verde, Costa Rica, Cortona, Italy, Tokoname, Japan, Watershed, Maine, Penland, North Carolina and Red Lodge, Montana.
Artist Statement
Art has been an obsession of mine since I was a little girl. It allows me an outlet to represent a part of me that I have a hard time putting into words – therefore, I create. Making art has become an intuitive and reactionary process. I often start with a loose image of what I want to create, but I’ve learned to allow space for freedom to respond to materials and form during the production of the work. I use human forms, flora and fauna because these three motifs allow me a direct way to illustrate certain emotions. I use clay as my medium because it offers an immediate way to work with form, volume and surface.
My new body of work features clusters of animals and flowers constructed out of porcelain with glaze, gold luster and underglaze applications. In these pieces, the animal heads appear to be bursting out of a heavy cluster of flowers. With each piece created in the series, the flower clusters become more abundant and ornate, and the animals seem to multiply as if the work itself is alive and fertile. The overall black and white color scheme and the pops of color in the pieces are all important to the work. These color motifs attempt to express all the emotions that I personally face on a daily basis. The coloring of the entire body of work is a comment on how life can become so rigid in the midst of the fluidity of growth, death and rebirth. The bright colors of the flowers illustrate the blossoming of life and offer a contrast to the rigidity of everyday responsibility. The final touches of gold luster offer an overall sense of purity to the body of work and allude to the strong sense of achievement and pride that comes with positively facing life on a day-to-day basis. I view the work as a metaphor for how life is always transforming itself – constantly bringing forth a new chapter of unforeseen existence.
The images I use in my work, especially the repetition of specific animals, have started to take on a more personal meaning in the work. These animals are daily occurrence such as the rabbit, dog and bird. Each animal has a specific meaning to me that relate to an emotional narrative: the dog represents loyalty and unconditional love, the bird represents vibrancy and freedom and the bunny represents shyness and reclusiveness. The flowers represent the purest form of growth from a plant and that idea of purity is why the flowers appear so heavily in my work. The final touch of my personality in this body of work is represented by the appearance of the hand. The self-awareness represented by my hand making another hand allows me to express all of these emotions in this work. Overall I foresee this work becoming quite large in scale to start pushing the idea of all the emotions I feel in a day being explored through form.
Recent Shows and/or Exhibitions
2023
Moments from Skopelos, Appalachian Center Of Craft, Smithville, Tennessee
2022
Thinking With Animals, Canton Museum of Art, Canton, OH
Figuratively Speaking, Companion Gallery, Humboldt, TN
Cup Invitational, Companion Gallery, Humboldt, TN
West Coast Clay, Art Center of Sarasota, Sarasota, FL
Annual Ringling College Faculty Exhibition, Lois and David Stulberg Gallery, Sarasota, FL
Art Of The Garden, Florida CraftArt Gallery, St. Petersburg, FL
Not So Guilty Pleasures, Kondos Gallery, Sacrament, CA
Beauty and The Beast, Blue Spiral Gallery, Asheville, NC
Yunomi Show, Clay Akar, Iowa City, Iowa
Annual Ringling College Faculty Exhibition, Lois and David Stulberg Gallery, Sarasota, FL
2021
Kinship, Abmeyer and Wood, Online platform
Social Distance Residency Show, Gulf Coast State Gallery, FL
Rough Around the Edges, Spaaces Gallery, Sarasota, FL
The Dinner Party, State of Art Gallery, Sarasota, FL
Crafts in The Air, International Exhibition, Chaulalongkron, Taiwan
Thinking With Animals 2, NCECA online show
Expressive, In Tandem Gallery, Bakersville, NC
Clay: A Southern Census, Clay Center of New Orleans, NO
Southern Miss Ceramics, University of Southern Mississippi, MI
2020
SARTQ Retrospective, Art Center of Sarasota, Sarasota, FL
Collaborations, SPAACES, Sarasota, FL
Instructor Showcase, Arrowmont School of Arts and Craft, Gatlinburg, TN
Instructor Show, Appalachian Center of Craft, Smithville, TN
Thinking With Animals, NCECA Show, Richmond, VA
The Dark and The Light, Linda Berry Stein University, Jacksonville, FL
Symbolic Narratives, Canton Museum of Art, Canton, Ohio