We currently have Moonrakers by Anita Taylor on display in The Entrance Hall at Drawing Projects UK. 

Moonrakers (2024) is the first painting in a series of large monochrome works, made with ink, oil, charcoal and pastel on canvas. Gestating during the global pandemic, with a sense of impotence at ‘looking on’ as events unfolded, the implied temporary structures (and interim sites of occupation) allude to the veiling of events and actions that transpire during human tragedies. 

The title comes from the Wiltshire tale of ‘moonrakers’, smugglers who retrieve hidden contraband from a pond by moonlight who, when caught, duplicitously pretend to be trying to rake in a cheese, the reflection of the moon. Taken for buffoons, there was no further investigation, and their illicit activities continued... Here, a reflection of the moon implies a skull, a visual doubling and memento mori that also ripples throughout this image and the subsequent large drawing-paintings in the series. ‘Bystanders’ to the precarity of human experiences, these moonlit scenes express the sense, and act, of being witness to a disruption and displacement, fact and fiction, memory and forgetting.

We are delighted to show this painting which has been out on exhibition and travelling since it was made in the artist’s studio here at Drawing Projects UK, so it’s a treat to see it back at the source of origin for a while, with thanks to Vision Art Platform.

See a filmed interview with Anita Taylor here about her 2024 solo exhibition, Moonraker, in which this painting was first shown.