Zeek Taylor can’t say the 5x5 he created for this year’s ACO exhibition was his biggest challenge. Shortly after he completed the tiny artwork for the Arts Center of the Ozarks, he took on painting a pig so big it required a stepladder.

In Taylor’s colorful and collectible paintings, chimps swing on a quarter moon, take tea with a cat, play with a sock monkey, dress up for a family portrait and pause in the midst of painting themselves, reminding viewers of his mantra: “Fear no art.”

The story behind Taylor’s signature images isn’t anthropomorphic or esoteric.

The Eureka Springs artist - arguably the patriarch of the Eureka Springs art scene after 25 years there - was working for a decorator pillow company, he explains, and was asked to design a chimp in clothes.

“The response was great - and besides that, it was so much fun,” he says. “I just knew I had to do more. Then people started collecting.”

Taylor generally works on a canvas at least 16-by-20 inches and often in threedimensional shadowboxes, which he says have “become a passion of mine as well,” because they incorporate the painting process with mixed media and added dimension.

For this year’s 5x5, Taylor “minimalized some of the iconic images that I use in my art, but even then, it was difficult. The chimpanzee image took as long to do as a full-sized one would have!

It took the smallest brushes I have, a lot of strain on theeyes and more time than I thought it would.”

The pig - part of the Ozark Literacy Council’s Pigshibition public art project featured in today’s What’s Up!

centerspread - challenged Taylor in a completely different way.

“It’s the largest thing I’ve ever painted,” he says with wonder still in his voice. “I was pretty shocked when I saw the size of it: It seemed like it was as big as a Volkswagen!”

The end product, “The Pig Easy,” created in acrylic with an automotive clearcoat as the final step, “took several weeks of working in the driveway because the pig was too big to go through the door.” It’s on show at Powerhouse Seafood & Grill in Fayetteville, so 5x5 collectors can see the broadest possible spectrum of Taylor’s work before the 5x5 Auction & Jazz Soiree Thursday.

Taylor is pleased with both “The Pig Easy” and his 5x5, titled “Pas de Deux,” but he thinks ACO partygoers will particularly appreciate thesentimental nature of that image.

“The sock monkey (held in the hand of a chimp in ballet attire) is a nostalgic thing for me,” he says. “I think a lot of people in my age group had sock monkeys as kids and have a lot of fondness for them.”

As an artist, Taylor appreciates the 5x5 Auction & Jazz Soiree from his own perspective, too.

“It’s a great social event,” he says, “but there’s also a large concentration of artists. It’s a wonderful place to commune with your peers.”

Whats Up, Pages 17 on 11/02/2012