This mini-feature first appeared in print in the May 2023 issue of Revelstoke Mountaineer Magazine. Read the digital copy here:
Revelstoke artist Taylor Sandell is building a multimedia career that continues to expand into new spaces and directions.
Sandell graduated from the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane with a BFA degree, majoring in animation. She worked in the industry in Brisbane before moving to work in animation in Vancouver. She says she grew a bit tired of the production grind and got distracted going on adventures, eventually opting for a more varied career based in Revelstoke that has included teaching at local schools and the Idea Factory, as well as private lessons. The new societal acceptance of remote work helped convince her to take the plunge and relocate to Revelstoke permanently.
“I like the freedom of being more freelance,” she says.
She’s “one of or the only animator in town” and has taught classes and participated in local projects, as well as online courses.
She is current the Program Director and Gallery Administrator at the Revelstoke Visual Arts Centre, a gallery where she’s displayed many works over the years at local exhibits, including traditional works like collages and prints.
For the past two LUNA festivals, Sandell has created projection mapping exhibits, which use massive projectors to paint buildings with animated displays she creates. In 2021, she painted the back of the Legends ‘n’ Heroes building.
Last year in 2022, her exhibit Confluence was painted onto the front of Revelstoke City Hall. The exhibit featured images from Revelstoke history and reflected on demographic change in the community and the challenging contemporary context of the COVID pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the ongoing climate crisis. The collage and liquid motion style display paid homage to the many groups who make up the community of Revelstoke, both past and present.
She’s continuing her projection mapping work elsewhere, including an upcoming exhibit with the MAPP_MTL festival
This year for LUNA, she’s stepping away from projection mapping with a new exhibit, Express Snail Mail. It will feature a letter writing station with prompts. After completing your letter, roller skating messengers will skate around the festival delivering the letters.
On May 27-28, she’ll be participating as an artist in Re-Fest, a new one-day event focused on recycling clothing. She’ll be creating lino-cut stamps specific to Revelstoke and combining them with fabric inks to help revamp clothing with new styles.
A new direction in an already varied career is experimentation with augmented reality using technology that blends classical and digital works using new digital tools such as the Artivive app, which adds digital elements to real-world arts via an interactive app that scans the work and adds to it.
In a short time here in Revelstoke, Sandell has made an impact with a varied and ever-expanding oeuvre of creative works that span genres and defy easy categorization, making her career an exiting one to watch as it unfolds.
To connect, visit Taylor Sandell’s website (https://www.taylorsandell.com), where you can find her digital portfolio and Insta (@taylorsandell) and LinkedIn profiles.