Taylor McKimens combines hand-drawn paper cutouts with various support materials to create drawings that exist in three-dimensional space. These hybrid sculptures depict objects from daily life and people engaged in common activities. McKimens is attracted to "everyday things that are loaded somehow" - not by indicating anything particularly symbolic, but by drawing attention to how meaningful everyday objects are in their own respect. A hotdog with a trail of mustard on a slice of Wonder Bread, an oozing packet of fast-food catsup, and a broken down truck on cinderblocks are all emblematic of American life. By recreating these items out of paper and relocating them from their natural habitat to the gallery, the artist makes it easier to acknowledge them as a part of a common narrative we share.

McKimens' works are more recognizable as icons than as naturalistically depicted renderings. His early inspiration was comic-book art, particularly the cartoons of Jim Davis who created Garfield; however he was interested in moving outside the limitations of the printed book. His paper sculptures stylistically share the look of cartoon art, but instead of being confined to a comic-book cell, McKimens' subjects exist in a world that provides an actual and figurative dimension. Far from amounting to sleek advertising images, these objects are shown in use or after being discarded oozing, dripping and dirty. There is something at once appealing and repulsive about them.

Growing up in a small desert town in California on the border of Mexico, the artist was influenced equally by the distinctive social and environmental terrain. He incorporates these elements into his own language of imagery and realm of experience. His works draw from the mystique of the everyday world that inspired them. This includes all the less attractive realities of life such as flies buzzing, sweat dripping and sandwiches seeping with mayonnaise. But these details make McKimens' work more tangible, nostalgic and humorous.

When McKimens includes people, they are usually general types used to convey a simple mood rather than any particular individual. These figures are often anonymous, which encourages the viewer to focus on the activity the characters are engaged in rather than their identity. In Melt and Tamp, a man is putting in a fencepost by tamping down the dirt around the pole with the butt end of a shovel. The act itself is completely devoid of glamour or drama and is reminiscent of the ordinary tasks McKimens performed while growing up. Despite the man's melting head and the fact that the figure dons only underwear, the work depicts an otherwise very banal activity. In this way, McKimens documents the language of nothing special and everything ordinary that defines everyday existence. His Freestanding large-scale drawings transcend their simplicity with their loaded comedy and nod to the realities of daily life. This unexpected display of everyday subjects dramatizes their role as the substance of our existence.

-Tracy L. Adler
Curator "Off The Wall" at the Bertha and Karl Luebsdorf Art Gallery,Hunter College NYC, September - October 2005