Taylor Smith isn’t just an artist - she’s a storyteller who uses the language of bold colors, recycled materials, and cultural icons to reflect on memory, technology, and the environment. From her childhood immersed in art to painting alongside Keith Haring, Taylor’s journey is as captivating as her work. In this interview, she shares the inspirations behind her signature floppy disk art, her passion for environmental advocacy, and her unique perspective on pop culture and nostalgia.

 

 

Check Out Taylor's Works HERE

Let’s start with your journey as an artist. What first inspired you to dive into the world of art, and how did you discover your passion for creating these vibrant and bold mixed-media pieces? 

 

Reflecting on my earliest desire to be a working artist brings me back to a childhood filled with creativity, world travel and exploration. Growing up with a mother who was also an artist, I was surrounded by paints, brushes, travels to museums and the magical world of artistic expression from a very young age. Throughout my adolescence, my passion for writing, painting and photography only grew stronger. My mother's guidance and encouragement were invaluable during this formative period, shaping my understanding of art not just as a skill but as a form of personal expression and social commentary. After graduating from Indiana University, completing studies in art, business and German, I attended the AdBK (Academy of Fine Arts) in Germany in both Berlin and Nürnberg. While a student in Germany, I also had the opportunity to collaborate with Keith Haring as part of a group who painted the base layer for him the night before he created his famous chain of interlinked figures on the Berlin Wall. I was able to stand there watching him and chatting while he painted his piece over my own yellow base coat in about four hours. It was a marvelous foundation. I constantly experimented with different mediums, yet my decision to paint on floppy disks was more than a creative whim; it was a deliberate choice rooted in my fascination with memory and its intersections with pop art. Both of my parents have suffered from dementia and memory loss, which has profoundly impacted my perception of memory's fragility and the ways in which technology both preserves and erases our past. In my work, each floppy disk becomes a symbol of the fragmented, often inaccessible memories of those suffering from dementia. Being an artist to me means that I am following the legacy of my mother, and that I am engaging in the creation and expression of ideas, emotions, and perspectives that are very important to me. I have done this as long as I can remember and it makes me happy. I suppose this path more likely chose me. 

 

 

Your "Snow Bunny" and astronaut skier pieces are both striking and playful. What is it about skiers, astronauts, and these kinds of iconic figures that draws you to them? Do they hold a special meaning for you? 

 

The iconic figures I choose, whether they’re celebrities or astronauts, are all stamped in our collective consciousness. Viewers often engage deeply with familiar icons exactly because they evoke personal memories, emotions, or cultural references. I’m leveraging this recognition to provoke a response, whether emotional, intellectual, or critical. Reimagining these pop culture icons and people allows me to comment on whatever issue I choose, such as memory, nostalgia, consumerism, celebrity worship, identity politics, or the impact of media saturation on public perception. I’m always thinking about these figures in a collective sense, but they definitely hold personal meaning as well. I’m a passionate skier and I love the mountains, and I grew up in a time when the astronauts were all over the news. My lifelong relationship to pop art also heavily influences my subject matter. By referencing and sometimes altering familiar images and symbols from these realms, I am inviting viewers to reconsider their significance in the context of contemporary issues.

 

Your use of bold colors and intricate layering really makes each piece pop. Can you tell us about your creative process? How do you decide on the colors and the collage elements you incorporate into your works? 

 

The use of vintage computer technology, particularly 3.5" floppy disks, is central to my creative process at this moment. These disks, once vessels of information and memory, now serve as the canvas for my paintings. As a general overview, the process evolves from inspiration to preparing the materials (in this case sorting through the tens of thousands of the floppy disks currently in my studio that best fit my vision) to assembling, layering and painting to varnishing and protecting the final work. All of the original software and data are still held inside of these disks. They contain digital memories and pieces of real lives. There are handwritten marks and software labels indicating what they contain: wedding photos, school homework, people’s tax returns, old video games, diaries, long-forgotten computer programs and so much more. I don’t want to cover that up. I position them so that the most visually interesting labels and colors are visible and not painted over. The layers of paint over the disks create a textured, multidimensional surface, mirroring the complexity of human memory and the impact of technological change. 

 

 

With pieces like “Grizzly Bear” and “Wolf,” you combine the power of wildlife with your distinctive style. What role does nature play in your work, and how do you bring those elements to life through your art? 

 

Nature is a huge part of my life, so the stewardship of natural resources and recycling is very important to me. Climate change concerns me greatly, and I have seen and witnessed the changes happening. Grizzly bears and wolves are both affected by climate change, so the animals serve as a subtle reminder of this fact. My alarm at diminishing snow levels is very high. I remember the weather and snow being different when I was younger. This is immensely distressing. Some of my artworks materially incorporate levels of melted snow water, so in a way I’m personalizing those pieces to the specific locations where I gathered snow. I also find it significant that these artworks have snow water from all over the world in them. Another way my work engages nature is by using recycled materials, primarily the floppy disks. They are mixed metal and plastic, so they generally all go into landfills or are incinerated because they cannot be traditionally recycled. By turning them into a painting surface, I am able to not only keep them out of the waste stream, but also to use them metaphorically to address issues surrounding climate and wildlife.

 

The textures in your work are mesmerizing, especially in pieces like the "Celestial Freestyle Astronaut Skier with Boombox." What are some of the techniques or materials you enjoy using most to create that depth and energy in your pieces? 

 

That particular piece uses 24 karat gold leaf, which appears in many of my works. The floppy disks are my signature, but I use a wide variety of materials, from traditional ones like oil paint, enamel, acrylic and screenprint, to found materials such as old paper posters torn from walls and alleyways, consumer packaging and vintage advertisements that resonate with me. There are certain paintings that I will also pour a glass-like clear epoxy resin coating over to create a glossy, jewel-like finish to emphasize and speak to the “shiny and new” presentation of so many things in society these days. The floppy disk has become a poignant reminder of the personal connection we once had with our data. It embodies a period when technology was more about physical interaction and less about seamless, invisible integration. For myself, these disks are cherished historical relics, invoking a sense of nostalgia and warmth for a time when our relationship with technology was more intimate and tangible. You could hold your data in your hand with a floppy disk, but now it is invisibly stored in the cloud. So by thoughtfully integrating floppy disks with the more traditional materials I also use, I try to create a rich, multi-dimensional piece that authentically represents a digital identity in the physical world. This fusion of old and new mediums challenges the audience to consider the enduring impact of obsolete technologies and their role in the complex landscape of human memory. 

 

As you join our gallery, what excites you most about sharing your art with a new audience? What do you hope people feel or take away when they see your work up close? 

 

I’m particularly excited about Whistler’s location, as I think this new audience will resonate strongly with the environmental themes and messages in my work. I hope people who see my work will come away from it thinking about the importance of advocating for the climate through art. Primarily, my goal is that my artworks be visually striking and thought-provoking. I want my work to stimulate reflection about the complexities and contradictions of modern existence. I definitely do try to bring in a certain level of humor and optimism, even if it does have a touch of irony that goes along with it. The use of glitched imagery and references to societal tragedies and disparities, in my Luxurious Disaster series for instance, is my way of approaching contemporary life. By tapping into symbols of nostalgia, my paintings are a meditation on the ways in which we store, recall, and ultimately lose our personal histories. Through this artistic journey, I seek to create a dialogue about the impermanence of memory and the role of technology in shaping our collective consciousness.

 

 

 

Taylor Smith’s art doesn’t just capture attention—it starts a conversation. Whether she’s reflecting on memory through floppy disks, paying homage to wildlife, or adding humor to her Luxurious Disaster series, her work invites us to think, feel, and reflect. See her work in person at Whistler Contemporary Gallery, and immerse yourself in her bold, thought-provoking world.

 

 

 

 

 

Check Out All the Pieces by Taylor HERE


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