“He’ll paint through our meetings,” Simpson, the MoCA curator, said. “It’s a special thing to witness.”
Taylor has three children: two who are grown, from previous relationships; and a 2-year-old girl named Epic, with his partner, the artist Liz Glynn.
Unquestionably, his success has magnified over the last few years, bringing a new level of financial comfort and fame that is not lost on him. This year, he added two West Adams work spaces to his downtown studio, one for painting and another for sculpture.
His sculpture is large, quirky and often composed of found objects — bicycle rims, a discarded mattress, a bird house, basketballs — making it resemble outsider art. Taylor said he has been known to jump into trash cans for things and was inspired by the sculpture of Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg and Marcel Duchamp. The bicycle rims are a reference to the many homeless encampments he sees downtown. “I’m voracious,” he said.
He acknowledged that it was exciting to meet Diana Widmaier Picasso, the granddaughter of Pablo Picasso, and to have Jay-Z visit his studio. “I might call Swizz and say, ‘What’s up,’” he said, referring to the music producer Swizz Beatz, adding that “it’s cool” to have a friend like the artist Kehinde Wiley “look out for you and say, ‘Hey, somebody wants to talk to you,’ and it’s Barack Obama.”
“I had just smoked a big fatty,” Taylor said. “I’m like, ‘Damn, wassup brother Mr. President?’”
Other artists feel a strong affinity with Taylor — Mary Weatherford called him “one of the greatest living painters, period.”
