Taylor Smith and the Poetry of the Obsolete. The interview
Using floppy disks, film, and melted snow, the American artist reworks memory, icons, and climate change
From long-forgotten floppy disks to portraits celebrating icons of pop culture and history, Taylor Smith's art stems from a desire to transform obsolescence into contemporary language. Raised in an environment steeped in Pop Art—her mother witnessed Andy Warhol's first exhibition in Los Angeles—Smith developed a sensibility that intertwines personal memory, social criticism, and a fascination with cultural myths.
After studying in Germany, where she even contributed to Keith Haring's mural on the Berlin Wall, her research focused on fragile materials laden with invisible histories: Polaroids, 8mm film, and, above all, floppy disks. Media originally designed to contain now-unreadable data become, in her hands, surfaces of painting, capable of evoking nostalgia, questioning the relationship between technology and consumption, and giving new life to what seemed destined to disappear.
Between homage and criticism, Smith's practice addresses the major issues of our time: from environmental sustainability to the cult of icons, to the urgency of climate change, as in her works made with melted snow, a poetic and political testimony to the fragility of mountain landscapes.
For her exhibition at Pando Fine Art in Park City, the artist presents new works that expand her visual vocabulary with playful and personal subjects, maintaining the tension between memory and transformation.
You were exposed to art from a young age, including through your mother's connection to Andy Warhol's first exhibition. How did that early exposure to Pop Art influence your artistic journey?
From a very young age, Pop Art was not just something I read about in books; it was something that was part of my family’s lived experience. My mother, who was also an artist, was present at Andy Warhol’s very first exhibition in Los Angeles, and that connection gave me an early understanding of art as something bold, provocative, and accessible, rather than confined to an academic pedestal. Warhol’s ability to transform everyday objects and cultural icons into art had a profound effect on me.
We were also a family, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, who had striking contemporary art on our walls while the homes of my childhood friends were filled with what I considered safe, traditional works from another era. Our family lived in and with the art and architecture of that moment, immersed in the energy of its artistic movement. That environment taught me that art was not something distant or decorative, but alive, radical, and deeply interwoven with everyday life.
As I grew into my own practice, that influence resurfaced in unexpected ways. In my Luxurious Disaster paintings, for example, I’m very aware of the Pop tradition of elevating consumer imagery and questioning the promises of the “American Dream”.
Similarly, in my floppy disk works, I’m drawing on that same Pop instinct to take an overlooked or obsolete object and give it new cultural resonance. What Warhol and the Pop artists demonstrated was that the things of daily life—whether a soup can, a movie star, or, in my case, a forgotten piece of technology—could hold immense meaning and reflect the spirit of a generation.
That early exposure planted the seed for my fascination with memory, nostalgia, and cultural mythology. It taught me that art could both mirror and critique its time, and that remains central to my work today.
You studied in Germany and even contributed to the base of Keith Haring's mural on the Berlin Wall; how has that experience impacted your art today?
Studying art in Germany was a transformative period that grounded my practice in experimentation and critical engagement with history. At the Academy of Fine Arts (AdBK), I was influenced by post-war contemporary German artists, whose use of layering, fractured imagery, and memory continues to resonate in my own work.
Contributing to the base layer of Keith Haring’s mural on the Berlin Wall was equally formative. The Wall was not only a political barrier but also a canvas charged with urgency, and Haring’s project showed me how art could communicate across divides and stand as a witness to history.
Those experiences still echo through my practice today. In my floppy disk paintings, the disks themselves act as fragments of history—discarded technologies carrying invisible memories—much like the Wall’s surface carried layers of marks and stories. And in my Luxurious Disaster series, the layering and collision of imagery reflect what I absorbed in Germany: that art is never just surface, but a dialogue with memory, resilience, and cultural myth.
Your work transforms floppy disks—an obsolete and non-recyclable medium—into vibrant portraits. What first inspired you to experiment with this unusual medium?
I have always been drawn to obsolete and vintage media—Polaroid film, 35mm photography, and even 8mm home movies—because they carry with them a sense of fragility, nostalgia, and memory. Years ago, I stumbled upon a box of my own floppy disks from the 1980s and 1990s, and it immediately struck me how these once-essential objects had become both useless and irreplaceable. They were no longer technically functional, but they still carried weight as artifacts of a specific cultural and personal moment.
Rather than allow them to end up in a landfill, I felt compelled to repurpose them, to give them a second life as the very surface for my paintings. In transforming something non-recyclable and forgotten into art, I found a way to honor both my passion for recycling and my fascination with memory. The disks became more than just materials—they became collaborators across time, carrying invisible histories while opening up new possibilities for contemporary portraiture.
Floppy disks once stored personal data, now illegible. Do you consider your art a form of memory preservation, erasure, or transformation into something new?
I see my work with floppy disks as a transformation, and in many ways a kind of collaboration with the unknown. Each disk once held personal data, but that information is now inaccessible—its contents erased by time and obsolescence.
Rather than prying into what was once there, I choose to honor the mystery of their past lives, allowing that absence to become part of the artwork itself. The disks carry traces of memory even without revealing their specifics, and that creates a powerful space for imagination and reinterpretation.
By painting on them, I’m not preserving the original data nor erasing it, but giving the object a new identity and purpose. In that sense, the art becomes a dialogue between past and present: a forgotten piece of technology reemerges as a vibrant surface for contemporary imagery.
What was once a vessel for private information is transformed into a shared cultural artifact, extending its life and meaning in a way its original users might never have imagined.
Many of your works retain visible labels or writing on the disks. Do you see these traces as an integral part of the work's narrative?
Yes, the labels and handwritten notes are essential to the narrative of the work. They carry with them the personal touch of the disk’s original user—whether a scribbled song title, a work project, or a simple numbering system.
Those marks hint at forgotten lives, gestures, and intentions, and I think of them as ghosts of memory that remain on the surface. By leaving them visible, I allow viewers to connect with the humanity of these objects, which were once deeply personal tools in daily life.
In the context of my paintings, those traces function like fragments of an unfinished story. They resist erasure and instead become part of the dialogue between the past and the present. I don’t see the disks as blank canvases; I see them as layered artifacts, where my imagery intersects with their original markings. The combination creates a tension between what was once private and what is now public, between data that has vanished and meaning that continues to evolve.
Nostalgia, technology, consumer culture, and sustainability intertwine in your practice. How do you balance homage to pop icons with a critique of consumerism?
My work has always been rooted in a deep awareness of nostalgia and cultural memory, but I approach those themes with equal parts admiration and critique. Pop icons—whether movie stars, athletes, or cultural symbols—represent the shared mythology of an era.
By placing them on surfaces like floppy disks or within the layered chaos of my Luxurious Disaster paintings, I pay homage to their impact while also questioning the forces of consumer culture that created them. The familiar becomes both celebratory and unsettling, inviting viewers to reflect on what we idolize and why.
At the same time, sustainability is central to my practice. By repurposing discarded materials, I’m intentionally challenging the throwaway mentality of consumerism. These obsolete objects, once mass-produced and quickly forgotten, are transformed into lasting works of art.
In that sense, the work operates on two levels: it honors the cultural touchstones that shaped us, while critiquing the cycles of excess and disposability that continue to define our world. The balance comes in allowing both truths to exist side by side—nostalgic reverence and sharp-eyed critique.
Do you see your art more as a personal reflection on memory or as a broader commentary on the relationship between society, technology, and waste?
For me, it is both deeply personal and broadly cultural. My interest in memory is rooted in my own family history—watching loved ones struggle with dementia and neurological illness shaped my awareness of how fragile memory can be.
That personal lens makes me sensitive to the traces and absences embedded in obsolete media, which carry a similar sense of loss and persistence. When I paint on floppy disks, I’m engaging with my own nostalgia as well as the universal experience of remembering and forgetting.
At the same time, the work inevitably extends into a larger commentary on our society’s relationship with technology and waste. Floppy disks are not just personal artifacts; they are also symbols of rapid obsolescence, mass production, and the environmental costs of consumer culture.
By repurposing them into art, I’m asking viewers to reconsider what we value, what we discard, and how memory—both human and technological—shapes our cultural identity. The personal and the collective are inseparable in my practice, and I see that tension as the heart of the work.
In some works, you've even used melted snow to draw attention to climate change. How important is activism in your creative process?
Activism is an essential part of my creative process because I believe art has the power to both raise awareness and embody change. The snow paintings began as a very personal gesture—I am passionate about skiing, snowy winters, and mountain life, and I wanted to find a way to materialize the urgency I feel about protecting them.
By inviting collaborators to send me vials of snow from their favorite high-altitude places, and then using that melted water in the paintings, each work becomes a record of a fleeting, endangered resource. Naming the paintings after the mountains where the snow originated ties the artwork back to those landscapes, making the connection between climate, memory, and fragility visible.
At the same time, I see these works as a call to action. A portion of the proceeds is donated to climate advocacy groups like Protect Our Winters (POW) and other organizations that fight for stronger policy change, because I believe artists have a responsibility to move beyond symbolism and contribute tangibly.
We are not taking climate change seriously enough, and I want my work to serve as both a celebration of snowy winters and a reminder of what we stand to lose. For me, activism isn’t separate from creativity—it is inseparable from how and why I make art.
You'll be presenting new works at Pando Fine Art on Labor Day. How does this series differ from your earlier floppy disk paintings?
The new paintings at Pando Fine Art in Park City, Utah, are very much a continuation of my exploration of the floppy disk works, but they expand the vocabulary of imagery in ways that are playful and personal to me.
While the earlier series focused on cultural icons and portraits, these new works introduce subjects like vintage automobiles, classic timepieces, and snow skiers reimagined as astronauts. They don’t differ radically from my previous Pop-inspired imagery, but they bring in new layers of nostalgia and humor, reflecting objects and motifs that I’m fascinated by in my own life.
In many ways, this series continues the same dialogue between memory, technology, and cultural myth, but it allows me to explore fresh subjects that feel both timeless and unexpected. By placing these objects on the surface of obsolete floppy disks, they become part of the same larger narrative about preservation, transformation, and cultural storytelling.
The result is a body of work that remains true to the themes I’ve been developing, while opening up new directions that are lighter, more playful, and deeply connected to my own passions.
Interview by Fabio Pariante, X • Instagram • Website