Extreme graphite
This story was featured in the November 2018 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art November 2018 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.
In school, whenever fellow students mistakenly swapped the second a in Kim Taggart’s last name for an e, she liked to remind them that “art” is the way her last name should end, because she’s an artist. Taggart, a fine artist by training, relaunched her fine-art career in 2017 after working as a graphic designer for many years.
One distinction that makes Taggart’s work memorable is the vivid contrast and saturated tones in her graphite drawings of the rural Midwest. “I tell people I do extreme graphite,” she says. “Because I push my work to such delicate, light levels and dark, intense levels, it creates an extreme contrast.” The artist sketches out her images in pencil first, “but then I go in and saturate and fill them in,” she says. In some backdrops, Taggart uses water-soluble graphite to create a “painted surface.” To achieve subtle delineations and smooth textures, she applies loose graphite with a large makeup brush, and she uses a clean-cut eraser to define white shapes like clouds. “It’s like a drawing tool,” she explains. “I’m pulling out darks, but what I’m really doing is putting white in.”
While her focus is the landscape, occasionally “a person or animal might get into a drawing,” notes Taggart, who routinely taps into the agricultural scenes around her home in Kansas for inspiration. “Maybe it’s just peaceful for me,” she muses. “I pick scenes because I love the way the light is cast, and I see light as part of the composition.” New work by Taggart is on view in March at Mallin Gallery in Kansas City, MO. —Kim Agricola
Taggart is represented by www.kimtaggartsart.com.
This story was featured in the November 2018 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art November 2018 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.
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