After forced downtime due to an accident, the local artist is returning to the drawing board, literally, with a child-like approach to creativity.
Local artist and La Jolla native Taylor Dunfee is reintroducing his creative vision to the community after first rediscovering himself following some forced downtime.
Dunfee has created a series of drawings showcasing a surreality based on his reality in recovery following a serious motorcycle accident on La Jolla Boulevard in January and is hoping for a local exhibition of his new body of artistic work soon.
“All things considered, I’m doing well,” Dunfee said. “The accident could have been a lot worse; breaking my femur as badly as I did is a pretty traumatic injury.”
Dunfee, a current resident of South Park, grew up drawing but for the last 20 years has made photography his main source of income and artistic endeavor.
With the January accident, however, Dunfee hasn’t been able to move much, undergoing painful medical treatment and physical therapy to repair misplaced muscles, adjust his gait and more.
“I can’t really do anything besides sit around, so I just use this time to really just focus on drawing,” he said.
Dunfee’s renewed passion for drawing is channeled through his new love for colored pencils, which he said is amazing.
“I’m reinventing myself. … What I’ve been able to learn in these past couple months is really, really unbelievable,” he said. “It shows in my work. It’s all coming together.”
Dunfee’s art is “very whimsical, almost a child’s imagination in an adult’s body,” he said.
Through his new series, Dunfee is able to use the newfound medium to express a catalog of lessons learned through becoming sober and other personal journeys.
“Listen to your heart, your intuitions, and trust yourself more than your thoughts,” Dunfee said. “The only person that’s mean to you the most is yourself.”
Having overcome “imposter syndrome” and his own inner critic himself, Dunfee has embraced his talent wholeheartedly, he said.
“I am an artist. … The happiest moments of my life are just creating, drawing and using my imagination and just having fun with it, not taking it too seriously.”
His new drawings exemplify this, as they began with an experiment to see what happened and turned into solid pieces.
Dunfee is looking to show the pieces locally, and would love to have a La Jolla exhibit.
La Jolla “has this energy to it that it brings all these creative people to thrive,” he said.
Dunfee can be reached at taylordunfeephoto@gmail.com or on Instagram @tsd_tattoo.
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