AJ Hartwick, Features Editor — Screen printing is a printmaking process where ink is forced through a mesh screen onto a substrate. Making certain areas of the screen impermeable creates a stencil, which blocks the printing ink from passing through the screen. The ink that passes through forms the printed image, and the rest is negative space. Though often overlooked as background, negative space presents a certain ambiguity that Visiting Assistant Professor Brett Taylor embraces in their work, pedagogy, and life. 

Taylor began their artistic career in the field of medical and scientific illustrations after being diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer at the age of 11. This prevented them from playing sports, and instead led them to creative outlets as a form of expression. They cite their experience in an international hospital as pivotal in their artistic journey: “If I’m struggling to understand what they were going to put on my leg I could only imagine how difficult that was if there was a language barrier or you were younger, and that an image could start to transcend the limitations of language.”

Taylor began to transition from medical illustration to print making as they began to explore their identities as a differently abled, nonbinary, queer artist. Particularly, Taylor saw an interesting opportunity to create work through a medium that had been dominated by cisgendered white men.

They describe their artistic process as auto theoretical, a term to describe work that integrates personal narratives with philosophy and theory. This allows Taylor to use their art as a way to prompt an intersectional dialogue around their experiences and identities: “None of the work exists as a final answer, but poses a question.”

This gray area creates space for others to author their own personal experiences within the framework of Taylor’s work. Thus, the work is personal to Taylor’s lived experience, but this context isn’t crucial to understanding and relating to it. Taylor sees this disidentification as the most exciting and thought-provoking component of their work.

Taylor’s work often exists “somewhere between words and images,” but as they become more preoccupied with responding to right-wing backlash against the LGBTQIA+ community, the work is more wordy, less speculative, and incorporates more visuals and texts from the past. 

Taylor also likes to think of the classroom as an auto theoretical space. Both in the structure of their classes and the prompts for projects, Taylor is on a radical mission to dismantle traditional hierarchies in favor of a community approach which enables students to explore a breadth of positionalities. Notably, Taylor does not finalize syllabi until they have the opportunity to know all of the students in any given class. 

“There’s a huge emphasis on learning from each other. Never before have I felt such a sense of queer community” said Madeline Young ‘25, a pupil of Taylor’s. 

In a sense, Taylor’s classroom mirrors their art, and their iteration of artistic critique is another personification of embracing ambiguity. Taylor’s primary goal is to create inclusive, queer communities through his classes in order to prompt generative dialogues and disagreements.

However, Taylor’s time at Denison is coming to an end after this semester. Though they don’t yet know what comes next, they expressed excitement about new opportunities and the prospect of teaching again. As they move on, they hope that their students will continue to support and learn from each other both inside and outside of the classroom.

They also expressed hope that Denison will continue to diversify:  “In a time where academic freedom and integrity is being attacked, I challenge Denison University  to continue to embrace a liberal arts model emphasizing and embracing diverse systems of thought. With an expanding student body, I encourage Denison to not only higher a representational faculty but to extend support for faculty and students who are minoritized or othered.”