Kevin Earl Taylor

As a boy growing up in Charleston, South Carolina, Kevin Earl Taylor spent a lot of his time outdoors: running through the forest, digging for bugs, fishing and getting to know the local wildlife first-hand.

Kevin ascribes his knowledge and interest in animals to these early experiences, rather than any formal education. “There’s an inherent mystery that we can’t really understand, no matter how much we study them,” he says.

His paintings explore the relationships between the animal world and human world through imaginary and constructed narratives. Incongruous subjects—a cockroach framed by architectural lines, an antelope encountering a human heart—suggest a scientific language that lies beneath the one we know, but perhaps isn’t meant to be accessed. “We try way too hard to understand what is happening around us,” he says. “We’d probably be a little better off if we treated ourselves like animals.”

What is most noticeable about Kevin’s piece for Limited Edition is what is absent: there are no animals, suggesting that the animals may be us. It’s a meditation, he says, to help us “remember that there’s nature all around us.” We may not be returning to the wild anytime soon, but it’s a welcome reminder that there’s a world outside these four walls.