Scotti Taylor
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Apr 26
- 3 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Scotti Taylor paints in the moments she can find—between caring for others, working, and moving through everyday life. Her time is limited, so she doesn’t overthink what goes on the canvas. She paints fast, led by emotion more than plan, and trusts that what needs to come through will. You can see the pressure and release in her marks, the changes in direction, the places where she lets things stay rough. Each piece holds a kind of energy tied to real life. The images feel lived in, shaped by time and the need to keep going.
Q: Your lines feel instinctive—quick, almost restless. What usually sets a piece in motion?
A: For me, it’s usually an emotional undercurrent—something unresolved, or something I’ve been carrying for a long time that suddenly rises to the surface. My life doesn’t leave room for long, contemplative studio hours, so when I do get to paint, there’s this urgency. I move fast because I have to, but also because it’s the most honest way I can work. I don’t come to the canvas with a clear plan; I come with a feeling. Sometimes it’s grief, sometimes defiance, sometimes just the need to breathe. That’s what sets it in motion—the need to process something too big to name, but too heavy to hold alone.
Q: In "Deification vs. Demonization," beauty and pain sit close. How do you decide how much to show?
A: That tension between beauty and pain is where I feel most honest. I don’t really decide how much to show—it reveals itself as I work. Sometimes I think I’m veiling something, only to realize later I’ve exposed it completely. I try to trust that balance will emerge through the process. There’s a part of me that still wants to make things beautiful, but I’ve stopped seeing beauty and pain as opposites. They coexist in all the women I know, and certainly in me. I show just enough to feel like I’ve told the truth.
Q: Texture feels central in your work. What does it do that color can’t?
A: Texture holds history. It makes something felt, not just seen. With color, I can suggest a mood—but texture carries a kind of residue. It shows where I pressed harder, where I hesitated, where I changed direction. Those marks echo the invisible ones we carry. I think texture speaks more to the body, while color speaks to the eye. And for me, making art is a physical release—a way to process all that’s gone unspoken. Texture leaves evidence that I was there, moving through something.
Q: You’ve said resilience matters—but your work holds a lot of fragility too. How do those two live together?
A: They live together the way they do in real life—side by side, sometimes indistinguishable. I don’t see fragility as weakness anymore. It takes strength to stay open, to feel everything and still keep going. My work reflects that push and pull. The cracks, the mess, the tenderness—they’re not the opposite of resilience, they are resilience. Especially as a mother, a caregiver, and a woman navigating systems that weren’t built to support us, I’ve learned that the ability to break down and rebuild is its own kind of power. My paintings hold both because I do.
Q: "Interrelated" reads like a map of many threads. How do you know when one line’s worth pulling?
A: I follow what catches—emotionally, physically, even subconsciously. One mark leads to the next, and sometimes it’s only later that I realize I was tracing a memory, a thought, a pattern I’ve lived before.
I don’t always know what a line means when I make it, but I trust the pull.
As someone who’s lived many lives—mother, advocate, artist, survivor—I’ve come to recognize that meaning often reveals itself in hindsight. Some lines fade, others demand to stay. The worth isn’t in how clean or intentional they are—it’s in their honesty.
Q: Your palette is bold, but your subjects aren’t easy. What keeps you working in that tension?
A: That tension is the truth. Life isn’t one-note. We carry grief in one hand and joy in the other. I use bold color because that’s how it feels inside: intense, alive, too much and never enough. The subjects I’m drawn to—mental health, misdiagnosis, resilience, the cost of caregiving—they’re heavy. But I’ve learned that color can be a way in. It invites you closer before you realize what you’re looking at. That balance lets me tell hard stories without shutting the door on hope.
