Natasha Mell-Taylor

Natasha Mell-Taylor is an emerging mixed media artist based in Philadelphia. She goes about life looking through a lens of both ridiculous optimism and extreme apprehension. This reflects the duality of her work and process. She works hard as a result of a lifetime filled with guilt and anxiety and this often becomes a tool for her grotesque and fantastical paintings. Her work is cynical and polluted with many materials. Natasha works thoroughly into her pieces. They usually have some recognizable animal or human features and the figures interact in some manner or pattern. She works intuitively with a harsh hand. On any given day things may be carefully sculpted and then destroyed and applied onto a current work mixed with paint and staples. If you walk into her studio unexpectedly you may find bay leaves and feathers strewn across the floor as if she threw them in the air and watched them fall to the ground.

Natasha Mell-Taylor attended High School in New Jersey. She was average and unnoticed.  She took film class every year and never completed a single project. Regardless of this failure, she still was accepted into art school in Philadelphia. At the only women’s art school in world Natasha had only male friends. It was a slight success, as she did receive low honors, but still left disillusioned and quickly moved across the country.

Recently, Mell-Taylor moved back to Philadelphia and has begun to teach, aiming not to neglect the average students with artistic potential. She has attended several artist residencies including the Vermont Studio Center and exhibits with the Gihon River Art Collective based in London, which will show in Japan in 2012. This past fall, Natasha began a two -year MFA low-residency program with Mass Art. Recent works include imagery of fish headed people and broken mirrors. Oh, she is also the curator of this show.