Darlene R. Taylor

Darlene R. Taylor explores kinship, place, and journeys from girlhood to womanhood in fiction and visual art. (Re)membering family lore and claiming the under-heard stories of everyday women are at the center of her practice. 

With artifacts of material culture: heirloom cloths, vintage handkerchiefs, laces, linens, worn cottons, antique buttons, and lyrics, she creates a hybrid form archive that documents under-imagined stories of Black life. Using silhouette, collage, and seamstress traditions, she reassembles memories on panels of paper and cloth alongside verses.  The resulting HEIRLOOMS series presents layers of texture and pattern that convey vulnerability and resilience. 

HEIRLOOMS is accompanied by an artbook inspired by the visual verses and historical reflections from Taylor's archival research.