As the Sky
Taylor Maroney (they/them)
Listen to the Essay:
My work over the past five years has been about excavating and reimagining. Growing up white in the United States, I was told I was everything and anything all at once. I could dream, I was unstoppable, I could achieve it all, and nothing was out of reach. My racial likeness was reflected at me from every angle, from billboards to TV shows. Yet, when I pondered what it meant to be white, the answer always felt so nebulous and untouchable. From years of research, I learned that this ambiguity is purposely maintained to keep white people from questioning our place on top of the social-political hierarchies.
Growing up trans and queer was the opposite messaging. I knew exactly what I was: unnatural, something to be frightened of, a grouping of body parts, an outcome of surgeries. I was predatorial and a problem. Where whiteness was so ingrained in the media, transness was primitive. With limitations placed on what I could access and experience, there was no room for growth. I was a living schism.
In my work, I began stripping down my white identity. I wanted to understand how I was contributing to white supremacy. By painting it, I could make whiteness tangible, which allowed it to become something I could recognize, talk about, and feel. Once I reached this point of understanding I felt ready to include the other parts of my identity.
Tricia Hersey, an activist and artist, says that the body is a site of liberation. This sentiment is the inspiration behind my recent work of the queer and trans community, whose bodies are replaced with sky or earth. The infinite vastness of the sky is the ultimate symbol of freedom. I paint my peers in a way they are deserving of, in a way they are not often portrayed. These paintings become a wish, a safe space, for myself and other trans folks to be, and be seen as they want to be seen.
My practice investigates how race and gender shape perception, operating as fundamental markers prescribed to the body, often beyond our consent. By removing the figure, I challenge viewers to reconsider how meaning is constructed. I offer a space for stillness, where a hoodie becomes a question, a gesture becomes a memory, and viewers are invited to contemplate: what structures hold us, and who stands beside us unseen?
I make my paintings via digital collaging and then translate the images into oil paint. I use a combination of Photoshop, Premier Pro, and Procreate. The videos, photos, and Procreate images are a form of drawing that allows me to ideate. Using digital tools to create compositions allows me to quickly experiment with different images without the restrictions of traditional pen and paper sketching. I then turn the digital image into an analog form, either as a painting or drawing. Lastly, I put these images out into the world as a form of reclamation.