Taylor Baptiste

Taylor Baptiste is an interdisciplinary artist from the Osoyoos Indian Band of the Syilx Okanagan Nation. Her practice is deeply rooted in her upbringing in Nk’Mip—a landscape of sagebrush and wild roses nestled between the mountains and Osoyoos Lake on the Osoyoos Indian Band reservation. Raised by Richard and Colleen Baptiste, her work is shaped by a strong connection to family, community, and ancestral history. Drawing from Syilx storytelling and ways of knowing, Taylor’s art reflects an ongoing relationship with the tmxʷulaxʷ (land) and tmixʷ (all living energies) of the Okanagan. Her practice is guided by a yearning to bridge ancestral knowledge with contemporary forms of expression—working to uphold, reimagine, and carry forward Syilx ways of being in today’s shifting world.

Taylor’s primary medium is sculpture, through which she blends Okanagan land-based materials and Syilx traditional practices with contemporary forms and approaches. She works with a wide range of materials, including ochre pigment, buckskin, rocks, sinew, beadwork, and found or ready-made objects. Her interdisciplinary practice also extends to digital illustration, painting, photography, film, projection, and most recently, performance. Open to exploring many mediums, Taylor approaches each project with curiosity and a commitment to the stories and places that shape her.

In 2024, Taylor earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. She has since returned to her home territory, where she lives with her husband and works both as an artist and as the Cultural Coordinator at the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre. These dual roles are deeply interconnected; her work at the Centre supports and extends her artistic practice through community-based research and archiving, the repatriation of cultural and ancestral belongings, and the facilitation of workshops that center Syilx knowledge, land-based teachings, and cultural continuity. This reciprocal relationship between her art and community work allows her to uphold and contribute to the living cultural knowledge while continuing to evolve as a contemporary Syilx artist.