Invasive

Taylor’s temporary “road tattoos” are painted directly onto the paved surfaces of sidewalks, trails, and streets and eventually disappear as the paint is worn away by weather and traffic. The North Carolina artist’s design for *Invasive* is based on 18th-century European floral fabric patterns. Today these popular motifs are used as tattoos, especially among young women. A subtle but witty commentary on a pervasive problem in the NC landscape — the proliferation of invasive species of plants and the subsequent loss of indigenous plants — *Invasive* physically invades the paved trail, its swirling painted patterns creeping in from the edges and flowing across the path. Before the final pattern was painted, names of local invasive flora were written within the outlines of the design and then painted over, a symbolic act of containment.