Artwork copyright David Taylor. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2017.

Artifacts of Western Settlement: Eagle Borax Works, Death Valley, CA, 1996

David Taylor
American (born 1965)

Location: Department of Transportation - Spokane Engineers Office, Spokane

About the Artwork

Artifacts of Western Settlement: Eagle Borax Works, Death Valley, CA is a collage created by artist David Taylor. It is part of a body of work that examines man-made marks on the land and our relationship to our environment. To create this piece, Taylor combined computer-manipulated images with a printed photograph. Together these images challenge our trust in documentation and recorded history. He notes, "An essential aspect of my process is the gathering of historical images and text that relate, either through location or content, to my own photographs… By allowing the intuitive to mingle with the empirical, history is left open to interpretation."

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Department of Transportation.

About the Artist

David Taylor blurs the boundaries of documentary, portrait, and landscape photography to address complex historical and social issues. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (1989) from Tufts University in Massachusetts and a Master of Fine Arts degree (1994) in visual design and photography from the University of Oregon. He has served as a professor of art at Oregon College of Arts and Crafts in Portland, Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, New Mexico State University, and the University of Arizona.