I bought myself a trio of basketball bodies with complimenting animal heads (a cobra, a t-rex, and a goat—I’ll leave you with the mystery) and made a mental note of the artist behind the work. Taylor joins smART Magazine now to reflect on how he arrived at this fascination.

sM | How would you explain this fascination with superimposing the animal form on the human form?

TT — For myself it all started with politicians and economists. I wanted to show they were driven by animalistic behaviours that are often not in the best interest of the population they were supposed to serve, instead of dominating. Replacing their faces with animal heads was an easy jump when I first started thinking about how to best achieve my inclination. In the beginning, I was more interested in the body language of the figures than who they were or their political status. After pursuing the series for a few years and hearing people project their ideas about who the people in suits were. I started thinking about how I could portray them in a way that people would be able to tell who they were. I was choosing animals that could mock or create a more untrustworthy feeling but, as the years have passed, I’ve used the style to make the human form more loveable in most cases. People often say my version of the Queen as a corgi is quite flattering.