Ken Taylor

The Place of Numbers

20th January - 17th March 2019

Shown in the 4 x m2 Gallery Pavilion. Also in Petitou Cafe Summer 2019.

For this sixth collection of postcard booklets and photographic prints, my attention has been drawn to numbers. Over the years handmade or quirky looking numbers have become a point of focus, as a contrast to the slick graphics that bombard our public realm. That there is evidence of a grassroots need to structure by numbers is reassuring, giving us a springboard for improvisations. This is especially the case in our world of algorithms and bots, which increasingly control our environment and democracy. Consequently there is an escalating sense of lostness, geographically and spiritually, when a digital device is not to hand.

The title of each photograph reflects an internal dialogue between the number within the image and the place where it was found. These are then brought into further conversation with another image to form a diptych; a third place of language and discussion between. The format questions the rational ordering that numbers imply by way of the quick selection of each juxtaposition through intuition. This creates an imperfect plurality suggesting a journey of discovery for the viewer to engage with. Each new composition is re-named as a sum of its two numbers, but also as an invented amalgam of the two place names. 

The series is inspired by philosopher Richard Rorty‘s musings on the world between numbers and language. The title of his 2006 collection of conversations, ‘Take care of freedom and truth will take care of itself’ and the interview, ‘The best can be an enemy of the better’ have become little mantras to contemplate.

Ken Taylor is 5 minutes younger than his twin sister.  He is an Artist/Curator/Architect who takes a lot of photographs and co-runs the m2 gallery in Peckham.

How Do You Do’s

Photographic Conversations

Shown in The m2 (at) 15 show at APT Gallery Deptford 10-17th May 2018. Also shown in m2 Gallery with the Place of Numbers as above as 6 x Individual Diptyches ie. 1 per week.

As a counterpoint to the ongoing ‘in the field’ collections of postcards and photographs, 2018 brought forth a new series of studio based portraits of men, entitled ‘How Do You Do’s’. This takes the multi-faceted sense of this expression as its inspiration. Essentially it is an opportunity to say hello, meet and have a cuppa, a thing men rarely do! Secondly it asks participants to bring along a tool that enables them to do what they do, literally asking: How do you do, what you do? Finally, ‘A right how do you do’ has theatrical and comical allusions. This provides a cue for participants to improvise a couple of little performances for the camera on the themes of playing and wearing. The prop for this is simply the thing they have brought along, with the corner of the studio providing a consistent white backdrop.

In a world where digitalisation, and other such ether like processes, are eroding the satisfaction and delight in work, play, human rituals and materials, the photo diptychs give a comparative snapshot of how male identity displays itself. The collection takes Grayson Perry’s recent TV series and book, ‘The Descent of Man’ as a starting place. However the real moment of inspiration was captured in seeing an electrician I know on his bike. On the back were rolls of cable, rather precariously stacked, while the smaller ones had been utilised as multi-coloured bracelets. The extraordinary in the everyday had passed without a picture, so a new framework for re-inventing such occasions, needed creating.