Artist

Ben Taylor

Coasting explores Ben Taylor’s interest in the sea both as a geographic edge and a reference point in time. The artist focuses on the seemingly mundane periods in time that immediately proceed and follow an unusual event with the intention of transforming the images of these moments, through paint, to become something like a memory, one that is both familiar and strange. 

The catalyst for this body of work was two tragedies that occurred at sea. In the 1970s a young Dutch artist named Bas Jan Ader undertook a solo voyage in a 20ft yacht across the Atlantic. Jan Ader disappeared en route and his body was never found. The second event occurred in 2015 when a light plane carrying a photographer and pilot crashed into the sea while documenting the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. Both passengers died. Taylor investigates theses events from the less sensational vantage points of the moments before and after the tragedies occur.