Guild, Taralee

These paintings are based on photographs taken of polished aluminum trailers from the mid-20th century. The riveted curved aluminum and even the brand name Airstream is derived from WWII aeronautics, and some companies, including Bowlus and Spartan actually produced airplanes before moving into the leisure trailer industry. Through my painting technique, the distortion visible in the reflective metal is exaggerated. In this way, these compositions create an object-ground relationship similar to animal mimicry, where the trailer hides in its surroundings by mirroring it. Therefore, for me the paintings reference concepts in Bataillean Surrealism, such as animal print camouflage, doubled imagery and formlessness. Given the degree of distortion, the metallic surface becomes an arena for hallucinatory paint forms that slip away from recognisability. It’s a complicated pictorial space because the viewer is presented with visual information directly behind them while being unable to turn around to make sense of it.

Understanding it’s a reflection, the viewer might search for their own body, but if not found the perceived vantage point is from a strange disembodied gaze, or the visible mirrored body is curved and elongated, with their hands up to their face to take the photo, disturbingly similar to Edvard Munch’s The Scream (1893).

Taralee Guild received a Bachelor of Fine Art from Emily Carr University in 2010. She graduated with a Diploma in Art from the Victoria College of Art, Victoria BC, in 2005. She is a full-time painter living and working in Vancouver, BC.

I explore the state of calm that comes from the liberty of colours and movements and from the energy that needs to expand naturally, without restrain nor objectives. It’s in this state, without searching for a precise objective, that I form the base of the painting: throughout abstraction. I use stencils, spray paint, cloths, spatulas; anything I can find that inspires me. Then comes the figuration (the intention) superimposed, which comes into play with what is already there: the colours, the unexpected and raw shapes of the abstract background, it’s there that I express an idea or a concept inspired by my daily reflections and by my awareness through a character or elements of nature.

The line has an important place in my work. Sinuous and lively, it shows the energy moving and unifying everything.