Ben Taylor was born in 1970, in Australia. He grew up living in Nigeria, Scotland, and England, with exposure to many countries and cultures over the years due to travel-loving parents. Troubled teens were reflected in poor academic grades, with only creativity and music holding my interest. Attending art college led me to become a modelmaker (constructing architectural models, advertising sets and props, and product design prototypes). As computers began to replace traditional skills, he stumbled across skydiving, amongst other risky activities, and decided to go partying and travelling instead. When the money ran out, he retrained as a CGI artist, creating billboard and magazine images for advertising agencies, spending another decade as a company director working between London and New York, and generally “living the high life” with gusto, until eventually, unaddressed and repressed past traumas finally overtook the party lifestyle, and a breakdown ensued!In a search for healing, a profound encounter with an ancient African spiritual tradition led him to question deeply, not only the life he had been living, but his entire worldview. As a result of that questioning, he quit his career in London and travelled to Gabon in Central Africa to undergo an initiation into the tradition of Bwiti, and started to engage with life in a different way.

Ben became a married man, and the couple headed west to the wilds of Dartmoor, and a cabin deep in the woods. After many years of working for, and on, other people’s designs and ideas, Taylor began a re-exploration of his own artistry and inspirations, whether as a trapeze artist, a DJ, a painter or a gardener. Meditating and deep-diving into the realm of plants and magic, learning, adopting and adapting. Life continues now to be a treasure trove of creative inspiration to draw from.Taylor’s art practice moves between painting and more three-dimensional, sculptural work. I like to mix both natural materials, found on travels and daily walks in the forest, with his Magpie’s eye for repurposed and up-cycled gems. The intention of respect and honour is always held throughout the themes of this work, as it is with the more figurative and abstract paintings that he creates using more traditional mediums of oils and acrylics.As well as his own art practice, he has also taught creativity and artistry workshops and classes, worked as a gardener, and as a guide. Within his teaching work, he tries to promote the deep meditative experience, joy, and the limitless potential that comes from getting out of the way, and being the creative process itself.The moniker Ben uses for my artwork is Mometo. A Babongo name, received through the tradition of Bwiti, it roughly translates as “Pygmy man”, and it’s through, and in this Spirit that Taylor’s artwork is created.