MFA 2021 Artists MFA 2021 Artists: Taylor Hickey

MFA 2021 Artists

Taylor Hickey

UMass Dartmouth 2021 MFA Thesis Exhibition

About Taylor Hickey

Taylor Hickey is an American printmaker, bookmaker, and sculptor working out of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Born and raised in Southeast Texas, Taylor earned her BA in Visual Arts from McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Her work has been exhibited in galleries across the country and she has participated in print exchanges both locally and internationally. She is currently an MFA candidate in Printmaking at UMass Dartmouth, developing a body of work which acknowledges and pays homage to the human endeavor to understand the universe at large.

Statement

Cosmology is the scientific study of the cosmos – the universe in its entirety. The term sublime, as it is used in aesthetics, evades such easy definition. Edmund Burke wrote that the sublime is the strongest emotion the human mind is capable of feeling, while Kant associated the sublime with divine pleasure rooted in the superiority of reason over nature. Both believed the sublime to have universal moral importance and the power to transform the self.
Artists, scientists, and polymaths alike have passionately pursued cosmology for centuries. Fueled by a fervent desire to understand the incomprehensible, many turned to geometry to help them make sense of the universe and its properties. Examples range from Pythagoras to M.C. Escher. Thus, geometry has become a vital tool for envisioning the abstract mathematics that define our universe. Incidentally, in the public eye geometry is often seen as captivating and beautiful, even spiritual.

My work can be found at a crossroad where the cosmological and mathematical intertwine with the sublime and beautiful – where philosophic questions meet scientific inquiry and scientific truth. With this installation, I seek to remind viewers of their place within the vastness of the cosmos. Elements of light and geometry enmeshed with organic, celestial relief prints call to mind the profound mysteries of our existence – those grand questions of purpose and meaning, of beginnings and ends, of infinity – and pay homage to humankind’s most noble endeavor to understand everything.