Orlando artist Ashley Taylor's new exhibition 'Petty' opens at Snap! on Friday

Our millennials are not OK

By Jessica Bryce Young on Wed, May 24, 2023 at 4:00 am

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Image courtesy Ashley Taylor

"Avocado Toast (Side A)" by Ashley Taylor, 2023

Picking one’s way through the jumble of anxiety-inducing slogans wiggling all over Ashley Taylor’s “Avocado Toast (Side A and Side B),” the message is clear: Our millennials are not OK.

YOLO, FOMO and “This is fine!” may register to their elders as just so many hashtags, but when translated with empathy, looking beyond the ironic exclamation points, they are cris de coeur that cannot be ignored.

click to enlarge

Image courtesy Ashley Taylor

"Avocado Toast (Side B)" by Ashley Taylor, 2023

In Petty, Taylor’s candy-colored subjects twist about the paper like specimens pinned to a slide, grimacing and grinning in agony. But dismiss these neon-bright prints as mere comics at your own peril — the subject matter may be of the moment, but the tradition of grotesquerie they fall into is not. These contorted faces and bodies deliver a can’t-look-away message skewering America’s most cherished myths, taking their place in a line that extends from Hogarth to Nast to Oliphant to the Usual Gang of Idiots.

The opening of Petty is celebrated at Snap’s latest Le Salon party, along with a handful of new works by other artists.

7 p.m., Friday, May 26, Snap! Orlando, 420 E. Church St., snaporlando.com, free.

click to enlarge

Image courtesy the artist

"Reaction Machine" by Ashley Taylor, 2023

Location Details

Snap Downtown

420 E. Church St., Orlando Downtown

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Jessica Bryce Young

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Jessica Bryce Young has been working with Orlando Weekly since 2003, serving as copy editor, dining editor and arts editor before becoming editor in chief in 2016.

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