Artist

BERNIE TAUPIN is a lifelong visual artist. In the early 1990’s, painting became the main thrust of his creative endeavors. In his early work, Taupin was inspired by groundbreaking Abstract Expressionists including Hans Hoffman, Franz Kline, Anselm Kiefer, and Robert Rauschenberg.

Taupin says, “As in any creative field, we start by emulating work we like, following the path that ultimately leads to finding our own vision, a style we feel is original and unique in its own beliefs, on its own merits.”

Taupin’s artwork evolved from Ab-Ex explorations to a level of self identitfication followed by experimentations with text-based content and minimalist Pop Art concepts. By 2016 and 2017, works become sculptural constructions off and through the canvas and bound with cord and wire. Expressing with found objects and repurposed material and artifacts. Taupin’s multi-layered creations include manipulated flags, scorched paper, wax, wire, wood, corrugated cardboard, fabric, bubble wrap, and resin.

“The imagination is the most powerful tool artists possess enabling us to conjure up beautiful distraction for the eyes and ears.

My dimensional work is simply the visual extension of what I have spent my life creating through words.”

—BERNIE TAUPIN, 2017

Consider them not just art, but more the musings of a vivid imagination.

Architects+Artisans 2014

Taupin demonstrates a powerful chemistry and instinctive aptitude with painterly shapes and color, as in his early non-narrative, heavily pigmented works...

Bruce Helander, White House Fellow-National Endowment for the Arts, Huff Post Arts & Culture 2016

The artwork of early Taupin definitely transcends the lines used to delineate what makes an artist. The work is grounded in reality that our eyes are accustomed to and yet it seems to achieve a new plane of achievement.

Mark Borghi Fine Art, New York 2015

Taupin’s vigorous abstractions are extensions of his id. Post-minimal and audaciously experimental.

Doug McClemont, Art Critic, New York 2015

One of the more potent aspects of Taupin’s practice is the way in which he “re-purposes” materials.

Arty Nelson, art critic, Los Angeles 2016

With 20 years of painting under his belt, Taupin’s personally and politically-charged visual works demand just as much of your attention.

Music to Our Eyes. Michael Groupmann, Austin 2013

Most highly creative individuals are capable of inspired work in different artistic fields, but few achieve it; Taupin has.

Waterhouse and Dodd, New York | London 2016

Outside of the incredibly productive partnership [Elton John], Taupin also nurtured an acute visual sensibility and infatuation with the revolutionary developments of Modernism. Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still rose to be his idols.

ArtSpace 2014

I have it easy. I have someone who creates the story. Bernie’s lyrics to me are visual.

Sir Elton John, Sirius Radio Interview 2016

Within the abstract languages of the AbEx painters, Taupin was able to find his own visual vocabulary.

Daniel Tidwell, Nashville Arts 2013

Bernie Taupin’s artwork, initiated both by Turner’s stormy Romanticism and the sandstorms of America’s West, continues to demarcate a place of promising, even spiritual tranquility.

David MacFadyen, PhD, UCLA 2016

Bernie Taupin is an artist who expresses himself via words-creating some of the most popular enduring songs of all time-and with paint, twine and flags provocative paintings and sculptures. In these latter endeavors, however, the aim is on authenticity, not fame.

Jacquelynn Powers 2016

Music and art is an inevitable collision. I personally gravitated from one to the other because I desired to create on a different topical level, and simply because visceral visual art exerts an almost narcotic drive in me.

Bernie Taupin, Interview Magazine 2015

Creating Artwork is a 24/7 endeavor. It’s how I see myself now.

Bernie Taupin 2017
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