Champneys Taylor was born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1970. His formal art education began at the University of North Florida (BFA Painting, 1996). Since 1998, he has lived in Washington, DC, where independent venues such as Decatur Blue (2000-2005), District of Columbia Arts Center (DCAC), and Pleasant Plains Workshop were helpful, orientational ventures for him. Decatur Blue (formed by a grouping of artists that included Taylor) put together exhibitions by local, national, and international artists. DCAC was the site of Taylor's first solo painting exhibition (2011). In 2013, he was an artist in residence at Pleasant Plains Workshop.
Concurrent with his early years in Washington he spent his first significant time abroad, in Venice, Italy, through New York University (MA, Studio Art, Steinhardt School of Education, NYU, 2004). Exhibitions of his videos were presented at Cynthia Broan (Chelsea, NYC) in 2005 and 2006, as well as in the Corcoran Museum's Armand Hammer Auditorium. Taylor's second solo exhibition of paintings was at Civilian Art Projects, Washington (2015).
Champneys Taylor has been awarded residencies at Virginia Center for Creative Arts (2011; 2016; 2021), Vermont Studio Center (2013), and 77 Art in Rutland, Vermont (2019). In 2020, he received an individual artist grant from the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH).[1]
[1] https://champneystaylor.com/