For Catalonia
2010
67cm x 48 cm
Card, tissue paper, cord, and acrylic paint
Although the title of this piece might seem to paraphrase George Orwell’s book Homage to Catalonia,
I made it essentially as a tribute rather than a homage to the late Catalonian artist Antoni Tapies,
whose extraordinarily singular and highly distinctive, visceral work has fascinated and enthralled
me since I first encountered it in the early nineteen ‘sixties.
I was already aware of his work, but seeing five major Tapies works in the pivotal 54/64
Painting and Sculpture of a Decade exhibition at the original Tate Gallery sixty years ago, in
April/June 1964, left a profound and lasting impression on me.
Tapies demonstrated that it is possible to create complex, powerful images from ordinary
everyday materials, the detritus of human activity almost, often with a rawness and directness that underscore the physicality and temporality of human existence.
Sometimes in visual art, words serve no useful purpose, they just get in the way, and complicate
things, the work is best left to speak for itself.
George Taylor
June 2024
