Born in 1955 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Philip Taaffe studied at the Cooper Union and had his first solo exhibition in New York in 1982. Taaffe has been included in numerous museum exhibitions, including the Carnegie International, two Sydney Biennials, and three Whitney Biennials. His work is in many public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Whitney Museum of American Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama; Collection Scharpff, Hamburger Kunsthalle; and the Reina Sofia, Madrid. In 2000, the IVAM Museum in Valencia organized a retrospective survey of his work, and in 2002, Taaffe presented solo exhibitions of his work in Cologne and Trento.

Taaffe is an artist who defies simple categorization. Combining elements of Islamic architecture, Op Art, Eastern European textile design, calligraphy, and botanical illustration, Taaffe’s works are densely layered, labor-intensive abstractions. They draw on the decorative elements of Art Nouveau without assuming a fully decorative character; his use of repetition and geometric patterns of imaging create not only a sense of continuity, but infinity.

Our new screenprint release, LUNAPARK, features the optical rhythms central to Taaffe’s visual language. Its strong black and white lines recall Op Art, while the background motif references Egyptian and Art Nouveau styles. The naturalistic forms representing seed castings signify the processes of rebirth and regeneration, and a strong sense of movement and verticality marks the overall print. These seemingly disparate elements combine to form a hybrid of abstraction and representation--a fusion of meaningful symbols, color, ornament, and geometrical form. Although Taaffe uses printmaking in his works on canvas, this edition of 75 is a rare opportunity to own a multiple by such a world-renowned artist.

Please contact Brand X Projects, Inc. for price and availability at (212) 989-9080.