Freakshow

On display at DJCAD Degree Show 2024. All photographs by Aoife Cawley.

Freakshow - Statement

R.L. Taylor is an artist from Edinburgh who now predominantly works in painting and installation.

His practice is informed by an interest in Christianity, conspiracy, mythological beings, limitations to escapism and performance of ritual as a means of overcoming barriers of shame in the currency of guilt.

This body of work encompasses portraiture of emotional toil, often combining varying life forms in one figure. Collectively, these works discuss the crossover and amalgamation with other beings as a response to miscommunication and embarrassment, aiming to create fictional worlds in which these subjects could possibly exist. Through these works, which are displayed over two triptychs, religious iconography is plainly communicated or inverted in cycles, displayed alongside various portals, offering an escape or posing a barrier to the subjects.

Freakshow gives the viewer a close-up of our shared lifespan, from mystifying birth to glorious and cathartic funeral. It depicts varying symbiotic relationships between the idol and the freak, finding Christian morality in a contemporary setting, where divine intervention becomes absurdist happenstance. Over forming this project, the artist has grown closer to the narrative, departing from the often-hedonistic mindset that spurred his practice into fruition.

Freakshow – List of Works

What If It Comes Out Goat?

100 x 80 cm – oil on canvas – 2024

1/6 - A mystifying and explosive birth kicks off our shared lifespan in a South American convent many years ago, where a wonderful ritual takes quite the turn. Welcome to the Freakshow.

Blessed Cure in the Saviour on Spilled Blood

140 x 120 cm – oil on board – 2024

2/6 - Set inside St Petersburg's most famous Orthodox church, the figures are at varying stages of growth, nurtured and limited, for the time being they resemble cryogenic kebabs.

An Empty Gesture of Freedom

100 x 80 cm – oil on canvas – 2023

3/6 - In our adolescence, the freak is no longer sheltered, and is now on a pilgrimage of brutal self-discovery.

A Cacophony (Reformed)

100 x 80 cm – oil on canvas – 2024

4/6 - A pivotal moment in our lifespan, St Paul's Cathedral in London sees the freak struggling to choose between two portals. One is small, almost too safe compared to the other, where a massive gap may show us troubling events throughout the location's history.

Exactly Seven Hills and One Big Family

140 x 120 cm – oil on board – 2024

5/6 - Rome hosts the happy couple, a beautiful location for a beautiful day.

You Can Hear the Bass on My Casket from Down the Block; Blessed Are They That Mourn, But They Shall Be Taken Out If They Are in The Front Row

100 x 80 cm – oil on canvas – 2024

6/6 - The Freakshow is laid to rest with one last cathartic, explosive ritual.

Bless This Meat

Selected works from project

Edging On Penance

12 x 9.5 inches - oil on canvas

April 2023

Ways I'll Probably Die

24 x 36 inches - acrylic on canvas

March 2023

She Goes To A Different School

21 x 21 inches - oil on board

February 2023

Group Conversion Therapy

16.5 x 13 inches - oil on board

February 2023

Make Me

8 x 8 inches - oil on canvas

February 2023

My Rational Fear of Horses

17 x 12 inches - oil and acrylic (texture) on canvas

January 2023

New Type of Guy Alert

A series of portraits of fictional cult leaders and members

Darn Tootn'

12 x 12 inches - acrylic on canvas

September 2022

Cartel Integration Agency (Missionary Position)

14 x 14 inches - acrylic and charcoal on canvas

October 2022

Return to the Blades

12 x 12 inches - acrylic on canvas

October 2022

The Bland Wizard of the Why Why Why

12 x 12 inches - acrylic on canvas

October 2022

Led by a Hair

12 x 8 inches - oil on canvas

October 2022

Slippery Velvet

12 x 12 inches - acrylic, pencil and oil pastel on canvas

November 2022

Most Likely to Commit Genocide

12 x 12 inches - acrylic and charcoal on canvas

November 2022

Mummy's Special Boy

12 x 12 inches - oil, acrylic and graphite on canvas

December 2022

Instruments from the 9th Dimension

12 x 12 - acrylic, charcoal and pastel on canvas

December 2022

Mukbang

In order of appearance: Rowan Roscher, Lucia Rice, Darcy Topen, RL Taylor.

Written, performed and filmed by cast. Edited by RL Taylor.

March 2022.

Sinkhole Beach

16 x 33 x 26 inches

Walls - acrylic, spray paint, cling film, steel, plaster, wire, latex

Centre piece - acrylic, spray paint, bubble wrap, iron, plaster, expanding foam wire

Sound element is a collaboration with Tilda Watson from DJCAD 4th Year Fine Art, available here

April 2022

Lived experience is very important to me, a Greek giant with 100 eyes

11.5 x 8 x 1.5 inches - indian ink on synthetic reelskin, brass, aluminium, string, plaster - stick & poke

Streamer

10 x 11 x 4.5 inches - acrylic, spray paint, steel, zinc

March 2022

Crawler

14 x 20 x 5 inches - acrylic, spray paint, iron, steel, aluminium

March 2022

Pluck

Pan

February 2022

Her Gravitational Pull, Act 2

16 x 20 x 16.5 inches - copper, wire, plaster, latex, foil, Modroc, acrylic, spray paint

december 2021

Canyon

25.8 x 17.2 inches - acrylic and spray paint on bubble wrap

november 2021

Her Gravitational Pull, Act 1

8.5 x 11.5 x 7 inches - wire, plaster, plastic, latex, foil, masking tape, bubble wrap, spray paint

november 2021

The Crown Tenor of New Jersey

12.5 x 7.5 inches - latex, acrylic, wire

november 2021

Collector

5 x 4 x 3.7 inches - latex, acrylic, steel nails

november 2021

Petal

24 x 17 inches - acrylic, spray paint, latex, Styrofoam on aluminium foil

october 2021

Horizontality is a satirical sales pitch to invest in a portable island that will treat those working in hospitality while suffering from addiction and/or substance abuse issues to a sober retreat. It is influenced by the artist's experience of working in the industry and by the health sector-particularly rehabilitation clinics and self-help trends-and the advancements made by individuals in attempting to change the perception of addiction and recovery in the midst of a drug deaths crisis. Treatment should be a wide-spanning public health service as opposed to an industry that best serves the privileged.

Shown at Leith School of Art End of Year Exhibition 2020/21.

Self Service Showrooms - April 2021

The precursor to Horizontality, both under the Self Service Solutions by Steven Star umbrella. It is a satirical website for a luxury hospitality consultancy company, using three examples of proposed interventions for advising to hospitality venues terribly on people management and general business operation.

Sculpture project - November 2020

The aim of this project was to make abstract pieces out of two materials assigned to us, mine were cardboard and tree bark - with the addition of plaster and latex. For this project, our lecturers wanted us to come into each day with an open mind without thinking of an end product. Many of the shapes I made subconsciously reminded me of domesticity, particularly protectiveness and food; I looked to distort the shapes and find something completely new. My favourite piece of the whole project was the green sandpaper which turned mainly pink after I used it to clean plaster moulds, definitely a happy accident.

Intervention project - October 2020

We used collage as a hypothetical proposal for installation, my location was inside the Imperial Dock grain elevator at Leith Docks. Made using primarily old issues of fashion and mid-twentieth century home/lifestyle magazines, plus always helpful stock image websites providing close textures. My chosen theme was ecofascism. This was something I was learning more about at the time - I knew I wanted to cover the topic from the get-go. The far-right are using ecofascism through weaponization of environmental crises, and laying the blame at the feet of Asian countries and cultures in particular. It has roots as far back as Madison Grant and in the rise of Nazism, in the "return to the lands... blood and soil" ecologist rhetoric - over the pandemic, comments like "people are the virus" have sadly found their way to mainstream media.

contrastbalance

A music based publication created solo over 2017 and 2018 while at Edinburgh College. I wrote, designed, laid out and released myself. The second edition was shortlisted for the Stack Student Magazine of the Year Award 2018. Alongside covering parts of the music industry, I was able to show some of my artwork. I feel this was a huge personal development, throughout each process and the step from the first edition up to the second, as a whole.