Wine Themed Contemporary Artwork for Wineries, Tasting Rooms & Collectors
"I am an artist with a deep love of wine and also wine culture .... My abstract and quite contemporary wine-theme paintings are visually rich and very different from the standard winery art depicting grapes, glasses and vines. I also think it might compliment your wine tasting room or winery in a truly unique and positive way. To describe my work in a just few words ... it is inspired by wine culture, the natural setting of wine country, and more specifically the artistry and science involved in wine making."
Taylor Smith's series of wine-theme artworks for wineries, tasting rooms & wine collectors was initially inspired by her travels to the beautiful and tranquil places in the world, specifically to the golden, sun drenched wine regions of California, France and Italy. Smith began creating two varied series' of wine related artworks to express what she experienced. The first series of wine-centric art consists of rich golden hued paintings of grass and abstract flowers on linen and canvas which reflect the traditions of wine agriculture, farming and nature without which wineries could not create their beautiful blends. The second series of wine theme paintings, more abstract and conceptual in nature, speaks directly to the science of wine making, complete with the chemical molecules of fermentation and various wine blends added to the paint in abstract ways.
The artworks Smith creates … with the deep reds and rich golden colors of wine ... are achieved by mixing paint pigments and glazing with fine Cabernet, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Petit Verdot, and occasionally a fine Sauterne or Riesling wine. The repeating circles within her art symbolize health and the circle of life, and are created by using the base of the wine glasses and bottles that have been collected during her travels throughout the world. Taylor dips wine glass and bottle bases into a unique blend of a wine and paint glaze to create a unique pattern by pressing them against the canvas to form a specific history, as if a wine tasting had recently taken place atop a painting.
Smith's original wine theme artwork has been commissioned by many wineries around the world, including the noted Mondavi Family at the Charles Krug Winery in Napa Valley, California. The Charles Krug Winery recently commissioned a group of large scale wine paintings to hang in their renovated, historic 1881 Carriage House in St. Helena and the winery also has sold Taylor's fine art prints and wine art themed greeting cards.
Smith uses diverse and non-traditional materials on her canvas to truly blend the world of wine with her art. She creates a unique paint composite by mixing various amounts and varietals of wine directly into her pigments, paints and glazes. She also drips and throws this mixture onto her flat-lying canvas in the studio to create the flowing grass and flowers found in these works (much like those she appreciated in Napa, Bordeaux and Tuscany). When creating these visually stunning and golden landscapes, she forgoes the many brushes found in her studio. Each golden landscape painting is created with a palate knife to scrape and apply the base layers, after which the paint is then dripped and thrown onto the canvas by hand. Through this somewhat violent and chaotic process, Smith seeks to communicate a sense of quiet elegance, peace and tranquility as one would experience in the vineyard.
Each painting in Taylor Smith’s “Wine Chemistry & Chemical Still Life” series is also heavily influenced by her epicurean love of wine. During the 1980s when Taylor was living and painting in Europe, she developed a life-long love of wine culture and the science of winemaking. Having spent time in the wine growing regions of France, Germany, Spain and Italy, she began to blend wine and art into what is now a diverse portfolio of paintings.
Smith’s appreciation of winemaking is a consistent and strong influence in many of her paintings. To her, feeding the senses is as important as feeding the soul. Touch, smell, sight, taste and tone all are attached to a single experience that enlivens the human spirit.
To provide even greater insight into her composition, there was a seminal moment in 1997 while sharing a very special bottle with the noted wine critic Robert Parker, Jr., Taylor noticed the tablecloth had become laced with rings of varying shades of claret from the many wine glasses. From this casual observation, she was inspired to develop the series of paintings in which she examines and mixes various types of wine with her paints to form an abstract still life study of wine and it's chemical properties. In many works, Taylor adds the chemical symbols for the molecular fermentation process of creating wine with charcoal and ink. Further symbolic elements in these wine themed artworks are intended to develop a dialogue between the science of wine making and the human body which appreciates, creates and consumes the wine.
In many of her artworks, one can sense that a wine tasting has just taken place with vast patterns of rings and spills left by wine glasses placed and removed from a time-worn tablecloth.
