Taylor Clark’s murals and canvases reflect a collection of deep ruminations. Her art is how she processes emotions, resulting in works she describes as symbolic and “psychologically charged.”
While creating, Clark takes a spontaneous, color-driven approach, selecting vibrant hues that feel good in the moment rather than following a fixed palette. Her paintings also tend to incorporate a sense of movement, mirroring the complexity of working through the ups and downs of one’s inner thoughts.
“My art is not my identity, it’s my exploration,” Clark said. “Mainly it’s like I have a feeling in me that I can’t get out for a couple of weeks, a couple of months, and I’m like, ‘I’ve got to do something about this, to try to put a face to what I’m feeling.’”
Clark grew up in a family where art wasn’t a job title so much as it was a way of being in the world. Painters, seamstresses, photographers and musicians frequented her family home. There was always access to a piano, guitar or camera. Drawing, dressing up and improvising skits were simply what her family did for fun.
Initially drawn to photography, Clark remembers experimenting with images and Photoshop in elementary. By high school, she was taking pictures of friends, then of families and seniors, gradually discovering that people were willing to pay for such services. Still, she struggled with the business side and never fully committed to professional photography. It wasn’t until college that she discovered her connection to painting.
“When I began painting on my own, something shifted,” she said. “I just felt clarity on wanting to pursue a dream that I couldn’t really see … I started out doing abstracts—really just having a good time in my room during COVID. And then I had opportunities to help work on murals, and that expanded my skill and my vision.”
To date, she has painted walls for several organizations, businesses and communities. Last spring, she was a featured artist in the Sunny Dayz Mural Festival, covering walls along Calle Dos Cinco in the Historic Capitol Hill district of Oklahoma City.
Clark said her relationship with painting is “one of pursuit.” She has developed her artistic skills through repetition, solitude and rigorous practice—teaching her eyes and hands to communicate with precision. The work is not always romantic, she said, but it is work she continues to return to, again and again, with curiosity and courage.
“I’m not one to shy away from deep thoughts or emotions: Why are we here? Why does the world exist? What’s our purpose?” said Clark, adding that her reflective journey continues. “I consider art just another avenue for becoming.”
