Victoria Taylor-Gore

Artful Painter Podcast

Feb 11

Written By Carl Olson

Quiet Surrealism

Episode 22

Episode length: 1 hour, 11 minutes

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Victoria Taylor-Gore's surrealistic, luminous paintings are imaginary places at the boundary of twilight and dreams. Seemingly devoid of people, her paintings pull you into their quiet mystery. Her paintings fill your mind with questions: Who opened the motel room door? Who left the suitcase by the neatly made bed? Who is in the car whose lit headlamp spills light through the open door of the motel? Where is this lonely motel? Where did the people go? Have they just arrived? Or, are they getting ready to depart? It appears that the inhabitant of the room has just stepped out of sight. Or, have they? Then you realize that perhaps you are the inhabitant of that room. You've become a part of Victoria’s painting and its mystery.

Victoria, who recently retired as the dean of liberal arts at Amarillo College, now devotes herself full-time to creating pastel and mixed-media paintings inspired by her love of film noir, the landscape of the high plains, and Route 66. Her use of exaggerated perspective creates a sense of unease and suspense. The open doors and windows invite movement between intimate interiors and dark, open exteriors – heightening your curiosity as to what lies either beyond or within. Her unique visual vocabulary is beautifully expressed in her evocative paintings of Quiet Surrealism.

I recently saw Victoria Taylor-Gore mentioned in Southwest Art magazine article. It was an exciting reminder of a conversation I had with her about ten years ago when I interviewed Victoria in a filmmaking and photography podcast I used to produce. At that time, a revolution in photography and video had appeared seemingly out of nowhere that allowed creators to produce high definition video of stunning cinematic quality with affordable digital DSLR cameras. It was an exciting development that encouraged creative experimentation. Victoria was an early adopter of this new video technology. She began experimenting with making videos using her collection of vintage toy cars, dollhouses, and figurines. Having seen her work, I invited her to be interviewed in that early podcast. In that first conversation, I learned that Victoria was inspired by film noir, surrealist artist Giorgio de Chirico, and filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock. Ten years later that inspiration continues to influence her art.

“I juxtapose objects in provocative arrangements that suggest meanings and draw the viewer into shared journeys. And I’m drawn to twilight or, as Carlos Casteneda says in Tales of Power, that ‘crack between the worlds … the door to the unknown.’”

— Victoria Taylor-Gore