Awards and Prizes

2024 Finalist Lester Portrait prize, Museum of Western Australia
2022 Finalist Wollumbin Art Prize, Tweed Regional Gallery
2020 Successful Artbox Design for Gold Coast Art and Culture, Gold Coast City Council
2019 Finalist Clayton Utz Award, Lethbridge Gallery
2019 Winner of the Bendigo Bank Tugun Mural Art Competition, Bendigo Bank
2018 Winner of the Inaugural Morris Art Prize, Sponsored by Sirromet Wines

Professional Development

2023 Workshop for Yr 11 Students, Tambourine Mountain College, Australia
2021 Workshop for Yr 11 Students, Tambourine Mountain College, Australia
2020 Completed a 2-month Artist Residency, 19 Karen Contemporary Artspace, Australia
2020 Completed a 3-Month Residency at Level Up Gallery, Australia

Metamorphosis Mini Solo Exhibition, 19 Karen Contemporary Artspace

19 Karen Gallery Interview | 2023

“They were the first pieces I’d presented to Terri. She gave me some good advice…to make them more unique. In that, there is something about my work that can’t be found anywhere else.”

In writing we call it our ‘writers voice.’ That intangible form your unique style has that cannot be replicated. Like the timbre and intonation of your actual voice, your writing has a tone that is both inherent and shaped by experience. So it is with visual art. Not only does the embodied artist (of any kind) have something the one next to them does not - they know it. They are deeply connected and have a sense of what their something is, and just as importantly they have enough conviction to pursue it. Two things unassuming Caitlyn Taylor has in spades.

I make no secret that I work with Caitlyn at 19 Karen Gallery. She is also a hyperreal artist represented by the gallery. When I found out during a casual exchange in the office that in her down time from painting Caitlyn likes to paint, I had to get to know my colleague’s fanatical-artist-alter-ego better.

At work Caitlyn has a wit and intelligence that is only matched by her diligence. As an artist she is the personification of her work; very real, meticulous, and naturally beautiful. Although she has a clear talent for hyper-realism, it is Caitlyn’s eye, what she chooses to paint and how she perceives it, that has seen her relatively new career evolve so quickly.

If anyone is going to critique Caitlyn’s work, it’s Caitlyn. “The way I look at those works now…I know I could improve on them. Which is critical, but I think it’s important in my practice because I want to be constantly improving - to do the best that I can.” There’s that conviction.

The day before the interview I invite Caitlyn to bring something that is personal to her or connected to her practise. Just like the art the artist creates provides us with a mirror to triangulate our own experiences, I find an object or something indirectly related to their practice provides me with a portal into understanding what makes an artist tick.

Even so, Caitlyn brings in, you guessed it, a painting. A half-finished painting of a young man sitting at a table. Coffee in hand. Sun on face.

On why she chose this painting, she explains, "I was doing something I love, painting someone I love."

It is a painting of her boyfriend Harry. Caitlyn is fast on her way to mastering realistic still life work, but she is yet to practice her portraiture skills, and while trepidatious, it is the next step in her creative evolution. When I ask why she chose to use Harry as muse, she looks at the piece and ponders. Immediately, I recognise the unmistakeable ease of love soften her body. Still, the reasoning Caitlyn gives misaligns with her body language.

"I could have got any old photo off the internet, but I felt I wanted to make a work for myself because I do make a lot of art for others. And I love that. But this is an instance where this one is just for me."

... May be so. But that is not what I saw. It's not what I felt sitting next to her that day. She chose Harry because he has been with her in the trenches throughout the entirety of her artistic career. And when she felt ready to embark upon her next creative challenge, potentially her biggest yet - to paint people - she chose the one person that would bring her comfort during the uncertainty of such an undertaking. She chose Harry. She chose Harry because he is the route to her deeper connection with self. She chose Harry because he is the something she has that the artist next to her does not.

- Written by Monique Di Russo (@moniquemichel.creates)