Josephine Taylor
Josephine Taylor creates narrative images on paper — drawing, print, collage — and video. Her work often examines the emotional and psychological remnants of memory, human connection and adolescence.
Josephine Taylor, Untitled, 2025
Mokuhanga woodblock print on handmade Udatsu Echizen kozo paper
Paper size 21 5/8” x 17 1/8” • Edition size 16 • Price $800
Printed by Nichol Markowitz • Published by Moonlight Press
Signed and numbered by the artist
Artist Bio
About the Process
This print is an extension of Taylor's deep engagement with the indigo dyeing techniques used in the production of her 2023 solo exhibition Night House at Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco. The image depicts four hellebore flowers — often called the Winter Rose or Christmas Rose — a plant associated with dualities of healing and poison, purity and darkness. Blooming in the coldest months, hellebore’s layered symbolism reflects Taylor's ongoing exploration of contrast and transformation.
A foundational quality of Taylor's work is her dedication to centering process and materials, utilizing their unique physical and aesthetic properties to echo the emotional content of the work. The traditional Japanese water based woodblock printing method known as mokuhanga was selected for this image as a way to mirror Taylor's complex multilayered dyeing process as well as the unpredictable nature of the indigo dye's interaction with unprimed canvas. The blocks were developed through multiple rounds of proofing, combining experimental and traditional approaches to refine composition, printing order, line quality, and saturation. Printed on handmade kozo paper from the Udatsu paper mill in Echizen, Japan, the first layers were pulled on oversaturated, unsized paper to encourage pigment bleed, followed by sizing with dosa eki and additional printed layers, creating a delicate balance between soft diffusion and crisp detail.
About the Process
Artist Bio
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Josephine Taylor creates narrative images on paper — drawing, print, collage — and video. Her work often examines the emotional and psychological remnants of memory, human connection and adolescence. Her subject matter is personal, rendered with a tender fragility and often at the scale of the people she is portraying.
Taylor earned a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies with an emphasis in East Indian languages from the University of Colorado – Boulder before pursuing a graduate degree in Fine Art at the San Francisco Art Institute. She was a recipient of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art SECA Award in 2004, and was included in the California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art that same year. Also, in 2004, she was awarded an Artist in Residence at Headlands Center for the Arts. In 2017, Taylor was awarded an Eureka Fellowship from the Fleishhacker Foundation.
Taylor’s work is included in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She is represented by Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco.
