Mediums: Black & White Photography, Portraiture, Assemblage, Installation, Photojournalism
Location: California | New York | Miami

EDUCATION

Master of Business Administration, Louisiana State University (LSU)
— Focus on business strategy, project leadership, and creative entrepreneurship.

B.A., Sociology – California State University, Fresno
— Concentration in community impact research, Human-Centered Design (HCD), and UX-based social systems analysis.
— Academic emphasis on social inequality, cultural identity, and community storytelling.

ARTISTIC POSITION

Emerging Artist & Interdisciplinary Project Partner
— Working across portraiture, written works, visual arts, assemblage, archive-building, and community photography.

Taylor Martin is an emerging artist whose work centers portraiture, memory, and shared human experience. Through blkgalerie, founded in 2019, she documents people and communities using candid photography, oral history, and assemblage.

Her practice explores how identity is shaped by place, lineage, and personal narrative. Martin approaches Blackness as a worldview and connective language—highlighting universal themes of belonging, vulnerability, and resilience. Working primarily in black and white, she uses negative and positive space to emphasize emotional presence and the relationship between subjects and their environments.

Across portraits and installation work, Martin aims to preserve stories, honor lived experience, and build visual records that feel familiar and relatable across cultures. She views photography as a universal tool for connection—inviting viewers to recognize themselves through the lives of others.

ARTISTIC PRACTICE & ROLES

Founder & Creative Director, blkgalerie (2019–Present)
– Community portrait archive and social art platform built around ritual, memory, identity, and belonging.
– Producing portrait campaigns, conceptual installations, and archive-based photographic storytelling.

EXHIBITIONS & INSTITUTIONAL VIEWINGS

Monad NYC

Clovis Community College Exhibition

Down With the Clique – Group Art Show (2023-)
– Participating Artist

African American Historical & Cultural Museum of the San Joaquin Valley (AAHMSJV)
– Work on view through rotating regional museum programming highlighting local creatives.

KEY PROJECTS & RESEARCH OUTPUTS

blkgalerie Community Portrait Campaign (2019–Present)

– Founder/director of a portrait movement documenting identity, intergenerational storytelling, and cultural presence in various global communities.
– Free public portrait infrastructure offering documentation for families, artists, and elders.

Photojournalism Documentary — Accra, Ghana (Study Abroad)

– Documentary photography/video and cultural storytelling project in Ghana.
– Work submitted to Fresno State’s College of Social Sciences (COSS) and Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences.

At Home With Growing Older (AHWGO): Photographic & Oral History Series

– Producing portrait sessions and interviews with older adults on aging, identity, memory, and social belonging.
– Creating long-form narratives that center older adult safety/design considerations and aging culture.

Communion (In Development)

– Mixed-media exhibition exploring sanctuary, sacrament, lineage, and global human connection through portraiture and assemblage.

COMMUNITY & CULTURAL WORK

– Visual documentation for local community and cultural organizations.
– Oral history interviewing + story preservation with elders and intergenerational families.
– HCD-based engagement approach prioritizing empathy, lived experience, and co-creation.

ARTISTIC THEMES & INTERESTS

– Blackness as universal metaphor + shared human language
– Portraiture & emotional storytelling
– Historic preservation & lineage-based memory
– Assemblage, altar, ritual space, and sacral aesthetics
– Community portraiture + public archive infrastructure
– Human-Centered Design + UX storytelling in visual culture

SKILLS

– Portrait & documentary photography
– Human-centered interviewing
– Black & white digital/film practice
– Oral history methodology
– Exhibition + project development
– Photojournalism field research
– UX/HCD conceptual framing