Featured image: Shock Wave, Glenn Taylor, 2025, mixed media, 14 x 11 in. / 35.56 x 27.94 cm.
Glenn Taylor turns the ordinary into the extraordinary, using oils, spices, and kitchen pans to render imagined celestial phenomena.
Glenn Taylor creates planetary and cosmic imagery using cooking ingredients, photographing them in pans and digitally reworking them into surreal space compositions.
His series of 12 x 12-inch mixed media works transforms cooking ingredients into mesmerizing planetary and nebular scenes, later photographed and digitally edited into surreal compositions. In Taylor’s hands, the domestic becomes cosmic, blurring the line between science fiction and everyday reality.
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Neptune and Triton, Glenn Taylor, 2022, mixed media, 12 x 12 in. / 30.48 x 30.48 cm.
Neptune and Triton captures a cold, gaseous world with a pale blue hue reminiscent of its namesake. The shadowed curve of Neptune and its small, spherical moon Triton are rendered with remarkable realism, despite being made from swirling oils and powdered pigments. The illusion is so convincing it reads as a NASA deep-space capture, but it was born on a stovetop. Taylor evokes the mystery of distant worlds while grounding them in the familiar textures of Earth.
Marble Moon, Glenn Taylor, 2023, mixed media, 12 x 12 in. / 30.48 x 30.48 cm.
In Marble Moon, soft whites and rust-colored bands coil around a marble-like gas giant. The sphere appears suspended in isolation, lit dramatically from the side. The composition and palette feel both painterly and planetary, as if the Great Red Spot met a baroque fresco. Here, Taylor conjures an atmospheric presence that is at once delicate and vast.
Jellyfish Nebula, Glenn Taylor, 2023, mixed media, 12 x 12 in. / 30.48 x 30.48 cm.
Jellyfish Nebula is the most abstract and psychedelic of the trio. A cloud-like explosion of purples, blues, and reds stretches across a black void. Three planets float across the nebula’s expanse, giving it an eerie sense of scale. The “nebula” was formed from sizzling kitchen materials, but the effect channels interstellar beauty, an aurora for the far side of imagination.
Together, these works form a miniature galaxy of domestic surrealism. Glenn Taylor doesn’t just simulate space, he invites viewers to see the cosmos hiding in plain sight. His work playfully reminds us that even the vastness of the universe can emerge from the humblest ingredients.
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How Vast, Glenn Taylor, 2023, mixed media, 20 x 16 in. / 50.8 x 40.64 cm.
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