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QUIRK Trunk Show: Taylor Zarkades King


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Taylor Zarkades King is a recent graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University's MFA program in Craft/Material Studies and Quirk + VisArts' current artist-in-residence.

Taylor is a studio artist and jeweler living and working in Richmond Virginia. Formally trained as a metalsmith her craft based practice sways between a jewelers bench and a studio that finds its form through larger configurations of wood, fiber, print and re contextualized objects. Through her use of coded material language and comedic mimicry she creates and choreographs strange but familiar objects into relational installations— each form hinting at another, deflecting a central gaze in favor of a horizon. Her current sculpture work focuses on nuanced orientations of queer kinship, gender, desire and home.

An important facet of her practice is a limited-edition collection of anodized aluminum jewelry. Each piece in this on going collection is made of re purposed aluminum and, on occasion, wood offcuts collected from neighboring workshops. Made with an awkward sense of humor, this work has an affinity for everyday contradictions, asymmetry, and murky weathered color.

King received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2019 and a BFA from California College of Arts in 2010. She teaches inventive craft based workshops nationally and has exhibited in the US, Switzerland, Mexico, and China. She is currently the artist in residence with Quirk Gallery + VisArts Center in Richmond, VA. [June-November 2019]

For this mid-residency trunk show Taylor will be debuting a curious sampling of new experimental adornments and works on paper alongside pieces from her ongoing production jewelry line; Lumin. Her new wearable works play with structural combinations of wood, fabric, and hardware that explore various ways of holding and carrying—both with ease and great complication. In addition to these pieces she will have a handful of 'made, but never made' works on paper / drawings of work that never made it off the page...yet.