TAIITAN
SURREALISM AND THE HOOD
Taii at “A Mid Winter’s Draw”, a virtual drawing rally and silent auction hosted by Hall Walls and held at Babeville
I am an artist from the Bronx who combines techniques found within psychoanalytic study with manga-inspired illustration. Living in the Bronx, I have found within family, friends and loved ones a communal repression of emotion, shifting into unhealthy habits, thought patterns and neurodivergence. I believe the practice of art can help build a meta-focus to these communal repressions, their effects and can be used to help understanding, reframing, and empathizing with oneself and others. Leading from practice, my recent work takes an autobiographical approach in the form of illustration and immersive sculpture drawings, which portray the inner dialogue through streams of conscious. Visualizing transparency in thought, I have been exploring the different streams of consciousness obtained illustrating with different mediums such as marker, oil, spray paint, pen, cardboard and more. So far, I have found “mark making” to be important when illustrating the inner dialogue, as there seems to be a buffer between thought and action depending on the medium, evoked by questions, such as, “what” or “why” causing a masking of self, (code switching). However, once passed this buffer filled with questions, doubts, and hesitations, one may find new information about themselves through the slow painting process of oil or rendering with ballpoint pen, while another may find freedom through the quicker execution of spray paint and marker. I hope the difference in liberation obtained through various mediums, mark making, and materiality can point out the very existence of freedom and liberation itself, and it’s importance within communities like the Bronx.
