Taylor Simmons at Public Gallery, London

Public Gallery is pleased to present HangTime, a solo exhibition of new works by Taylor Simmons, and the artist’s second presentation with the gallery. Across two floors of the gallery’s expanded space, Simmons’ tightly framed and heavily layered compositions shift from referencing sourced imagery, often found photographs and viral video clips, to a series of familial portraits, conveying the artist’s personal specificity and domestic space. His depictions of everyday life, distinct for their vibrant tones and balance of acrylic, oil and spray paint, demonstrate a newfound immediacy and casual intimacy that welcome the viewer into his perspective — the most direct, detailed and explicit series of works that speak without prevarication from the artist’s home.

Simmons’ work has been previously characterized as solidifying Black cultural history; he often paints from reference images, citing music, photographs on eBay, and video clips as inspiration, ‘turning Black reality into Black mythology.’ In works such as Dancers at the Dome (2025), Simmons carries out this promise: loose, gestural brushstrokes of baby pink and Dodger blue bring a 90s Atlantan step team into focus, seemingly pre-performance and tinged with anticipation. His practice anthologizes decades of creative Black subcultures, to which the mainstream is indebted though rarely credits. Comparing his use of Black semiotics to sampling, his work remixes ‘if you know you know’ phenomena, effectively canonizing and reaffirming their importance.

From performative masculinity to pensive meditation and earnest desire, Simmons’ work has always been grounded in self-analysis, depicting figures inhabiting states the artist himself has occasionally occupied. Yet HangTime opens a more personal lens, putting into dialogue works that observe others with ones that share Simmons’ own vantage point. Works such as Larisa IV (2025) evidence this shift – a portrait of Simmons’ friend mid-gesture and mid-thought, punctured with the depth and density that only comes with knowing someone well. In Chris (2025), the composition is structured and object-filled, overcrowded with stacks of books and piles of papers; even so, it is Simmons’ sensitivity to colour and form that inject the work with complexity and weight, characterizing not just the sitter, but also how Simmons sees his friend.

‘HangTime’ gestures to the personal exchanges Simmons offers us through his work; simultaneously, it’s slang for the time it takes for one’s braids to start hanging. In many works, Simmons invites us into the studio, as if echoing the 60s student rally slogan that ‘the personal is political’ – except that the work has nothing to do with politics. Both poetically simple and unequivocally sincere, Simmons’ practice honours the multiplicity and depth of the people he knows and the places he’s lived.

Taylor Simmons (b. 1990, Atlanta, GA, USA) lives and works in New York, NY, USA. Recent solo exhibitions include: LIMBO = Living Is My Best Option, Helena Anrather, New York (2024); Where’s My Hug At?, Sixi Museum, Nanjing (2023); and Everything All At Once, Public Gallery, London (2022). Simmons has participated in numerous group exhibitions, at venues such as Deli Gallery, Mexico City (2023); Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York (2023); Martha’s Contemporary, Austin, TX (2022); Particle Foundation, Miami, FL (2022); Public Gallery, London (2022); Marlborough Gallery, London (2022); Carlye Packer, Palm Springs, CA (2022); Half Gallery, New York (2021). His work is part of the permanent collections of the X Museum, Beijing, China; The Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, Berlin, Germany; and Sixi Museum, Nanjing, China. Taylor Simmons was selected for The Artsy Vanguard 2025.