Eliot Taguiam Artist statement

I strive for honesty in my work, at any cost. I believe that in order to create a body of work worth remembering one must put in as much effort as they can in order to achieve the highest level of understanding from their viewers. That being said, my work is thought-out, planned, and executed with regard to the highest of standards - my own. Regardless of the project I undertake I always strive to produce the best image possible both conceptually and technically. This can only be achieved – I feel – if the work is honest and made with very specific intent.

My work has always been about sentimentality – whether it be my own sentiments or those of another. My portraits focus on the depth of human emotion and all that carries with it. My landscapes and still lives evoke a similar feeling of knowing – complete empathy between my subject, my audience, and myself. It is these aspects, I believe, that make my work romantic in every sense of the word. For what greater honor is there but to share an emotion with another human being.

Recently I have been obsessed with ideas of more complex emotions such as yearning, contentment, ambition, and fortitude – to name a few. I have undertaken this task because I believe that in a world filled with negative, simple, emotions to be complicated and to be a true romantic is really a radical idea.  Likewise I have begun dissecting my own emotions and thought processes. Ideas of “home” and adulthood have been at the forefront of my mind. My most recent project simply titled “Home” is an example of this investigation. Focused on my goals and expectations of myself I concluded that the saying “home is where your heart is” became an inaccurate mawkishness of human emotion. The idea of home is much more multifaceted than it appears. Through my work I have investigated what home means to me. I have found that the phenomenon of home is – in essence - where one feels of use, where one feels a sense of belonging rather than playing the roll of an outside spectator. It is this conception that has brought my work to the conclusion that the word “home” can not only be a place, but a person, a group, a practice, or even an idea. My work can be viewed as the definition of home as it manifests to me. Likewise, it is the aim of this body of work to not only articulate what home is to me, but to enable the viewer to surmise what they consider to be their home.