Sea Song

 

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Copyright © text 2025 & image 2014 by George Taylor.  All rights reserved. 

Sea Song

2014

Acrylic paint, canvas, collage, pencil, cardboard and paper

83cm x 127cm

Terry Frost, in a lecture at Warwick University, repeated in the Banbury Museum film of 2015, said that ‘when he got into abstract painting, it was like writing poetry’, and in many ways that is true.

Read more: Frost, Family and Friends. The Banbury Years.

A poem made from words and the spaces between, becomes an entity in its own right, as does an image made from visual elements and the spaces between.

The spaces between can be vital as the words and the visual elements, but the words and the shapes and colours dictate the spaces, and in abstract art it is possible to create an interactive pictorial space on a physically flat surface that  does not depend on illusory perspective.

In Sea Song, I wanted the colours, and the straight and torn edges to just touch and to almost touch, in a kind of ariel ballet, circumscribed with looping arcs of graphite, freely and confidently drawn, but located precisely to dynamically activate the coloured forms.

The surface area is large, so I wished to give the image a visually homogenous quality, but also to have numerous points of visual interest within it, like words, or groups of words within a poem or notes or successions of notes within a musical composition.

So, as Terry rightly said, whilst making a painting can be akin to making poetry, and possibly, complimentary to it, visual art per se is unique and particular, and its essential character is manifestly and fundamentally different from the oral or the aural or the written word and thus, is definitively noninterchangeable.

George Taylor

August 2025

Voyager

 

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Copyright © text 2021 & image 2010 by George Taylor.  All rights reserved.

Voyager

Mixed media on canvas

Image size 94cms x 94cms Framed size 115cms x 115cms

This work, made in 2010, explores, amongst other things, the two dimensional ‘spatial’ phenomenon which occurs in painting and, especially in abstraction. Obviously, it is not possible to create an actual, third physical dimension from a flat, usually wall hung, two-dimensional object, having only height and width, so this work explores pictorial space on a two-dimensional plane, bounded by distinctly defined perimeters or edges.

As some elements are collaged, literally, stuck to the surface, these do have an actual, albeit minimal, third dimension, but this is a projection forward from the picture plane, not, as it were, behind it.

This is not a constructed illusion or representation, achieved traditionally, for example, via the application of the principles of vanishing point perspective, conventional composition, or the prescriptive use of colour, formulaic modelling and tone to describe and allude to three-dimensional form. These techniques have been prevalent throughout the history of painting to represent, illustrate, stand in for, serve as, or be a proxy for recognisable objects or entities in what may be described as the real world.

But rather, it is the consequence of the juxtaposition and interaction, of a variety of often ambiguous, incongruous, and sometimes, vaguely symbolic coloured marks, shapes and gestures within a given flat surface area. The intention being to produce an image that is intrinsic and self-contained, and which contains no intended narrative, ‘subject’, comment or message.

The title, which is essentially a referential device, may refer to the Voyager space mission, or to a voyage or a journey, or to none of these things.

……………………………………………………………..

The poet and writer John Updike said: ‘What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit.’

Updike, on hearing a comment made by Patrick Heron, about the paintings of Terry Frost, to the effect that ’Frost’s space is deeper than Poliakoff’s and, not as deep as that of Soulage’s,’ also authored a poem called ‘The Moderate,’ which in a light hearted manner, comprises a short, comparative essay on ‘space’ in abstract painting.

George Taylor

April 2021

The Moderate

‘Soulage’s space is deep and wide –

Beware!’ they said. ‘Beware,’ they cried,

‘The yawning gap, the black abyss

That closes with a dreadful hiss!

‘That shallow space by Poliakoff,’

They added, is a wretched trough.

It wrinkles, splinters, shreds and fades;

It wouldn’t hold the Jack of Spades.’

‘But where?’ I asked, bewildered, lost.

‘Go seek, ‘they said, ‘the space of Frost;

It’s not too bonny, not too braw –

The nicest space you ever saw.’

I harked, and heard, and here I live,

Delighted to be relative.

John Updike.

White Rock

 

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Copyright © text & image by George Taylor.  All rights reserved.

"A painting is a physical entity and, if successful, to the responsive viewer, hopefully, will engender a 'physical' experience via the eyes and the human nervous system, just as an actual encounter with powerful natural forces will directly affect the senses and the nervous system. It follows that the more extreme the exposure the greater the impact this will have, not merely at the time of the experience, but in a lasting manner via memory and recollection.

Terry Frost made a painting called Force Eight which was an immediate and direct response to a walk to his studio in St Ives in a force eight gale, the result is a unique abstracted rendering of that particular 'forceful' experience in paint. 

Patently, it is not a detailed figurative rendering of the experience, but was for him the essence of that totally engaging event expressed in colour, form and critically the feeling of dynamic energy conveyed through the marks left by the expressionistic brushstrokes, and the masterful use of pictorial space.

My painting here is not quite as 'abstracted' as Terry's but is the consequence of a similar 'all-embracing', and totally engaging experience in the face of powerful natural forces in a particular and imposing location."

George Taylor

Taylor-Thwaites Studios,
Stonewalls, Sturt Road, Charlbury, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, OX7 3EP.
01608 810174
wwwgeorgetaylorart.com

'White Rock' appeared on the UK Artists online 'Artsy' Gallery page
Artwork White Rock on UK Artists

Life in the abstract: George Taylor’s fifty years as an artist

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Copyright © text 2017 & images by George Taylor.  All rights reserved.

In his work, Taylor attempts to organise aggregated glimpses and fragments of form, the juxtaposition of vaguely referential, symbolic, abstracted and ambiguous marks being pivotal.

The product of this approach becomes a self-contained entity having a concrete existence in the natural world but not defined by it or dependent upon an illusory construct of it, but possibly having oblique or allusive references to it.

He strives to construct a compositionally coherent, essentially self-referential image that resists absolute definition or rigidly literal interpretation, free from the prop of the visually perceived world 'out there' or of the 'deceit' of the figurative.

Nearing, 1963

George Taylor sees an inherent integrity in abstract art… through his visual world of ‘imagined spaces and specific places’ he explores how to communicate the complex.

He believes works of art essentially become objects, left to be encountered by others, and the power of abstraction is held in intensely felt forces, captured through art at a particular time and place.

ART BLOG asked Taylor what drives him to create, and what makes abstraction so compelling…

What drew you to abstraction?

My early training in art in the late 50s and early 60s involved drawing from life: pictorial composition, anatomy, colour analysis and the study of perspective…

It was a thorough traditional and academic grounding in the essential skills of perception and observation, none of which I regret.

However, I discovered very quickly that mere representation, even when undertaken skilfully and imaginatively, did not satisfy me.

I was inexorably attracted to what is popularly referred to as abstraction, or possibly more accurately, non-figuration.

Equinox, 1961

I made my first fully abstract painting in 1961 and in 1963 began making white, wall hung abstract constructions with Michael Baldwin, later of the influential conceptual art collaboration Art and Language.

A little later in that year, I met and got to know the internationally-known painter Sir Terry Frost RA, and began to develop further my strong interest in colour, form and, critically, with abstraction, pictorial space.

What, for you, is the chief satisfaction to be had in making abstract art?

The virtually boundless freedom and creative possibilities it affords, in that one is not restricted to the depiction of a subject, or at least, to something ‘represented’.

Freedom, though, implies responsibility as a corollary, and amongst other things, the making of abstract art requires rigour, insight and dedication.

Silent Motto

North Atlantic Odyssey

Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, that you have heightened sensitivity for composition and for colour, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential.

Wassily Kandinsky 1866 – 1944.

You have spoken of ‘the deceit of the figurative’… could you elaborate?

I don’t seek to criticise representational art, or to be controversial, and comparisons should not be an exercise in semantics.

Any attempt to reproduce an imitation of the objective world in paint, or any other medium, is arguably of the nature of a ‘deceit’ (the quotation marks are important) and the more skilfully this is done, then logically the more ‘deceitful’ it becomes.

George Taylor in his studio, Shipston

Therefore, what are regarded as the best or most successful figurative paintings are also the most ‘deceitful’.

This though, does not detract from the fact that they remain the best figurative paintings, and amongst the very best works of art ever made.

It is crucial to regard the word ‘deceit’ in relation to its opposite ‘honest’, or perhaps, ‘deceitfulness’, as opposed to ‘honesty’.

Thus, a representation of the objective world on a two-dimensional plane is by definition, a ‘deceit’, as the resulting image is not ‘of itself’, but purports to be a representation of something outside of itself; whereas a non-figurative or abstract work is essentially self-referential, and therefore innately more ‘honest’.

Spacetime

Obviously, there are degrees of representation and thus of abstraction, but it is only when all objective references are excluded, and a work relies entirely on the materials of its making, does the result become wholly abstract and non-referential, and is therefore, more intrinsically ‘honest’ by definition.

Abstraction is real, probably more real than nature.

Josef Albers 1888 – 1976

George Taylor, September 2017

Reference: RBSA Birmingham Art Gallery ART BLOG

George Taylor contributes to 'Frost, Family and Friends'

Royal Academy of Arts 'Six Decades'

Personalised by Sir Terry Frost

The Banbury Museum holds an exhibition
'Frost, Family and Friends: A unique centenary celebration of Sir Terry Frost RA'. 

Open from 26th September to 9th January 2016, this exhibition celebrates 100 years since Sir Terry's birth and shows his influential abstract paintings, including work influenced by his time in Banbury. Alongside these colourful works, are rarely seen paintings and artefacts on loan from his family and friends.
George Taylor has loaned various items for this exhibition and also appears in a film that is on show in the gallery.

Adrian Heath 'Terry Frost'

Personalised by Sir Terry Frost

In the very early sixties, George set up his own working studio in Bodicote, Banbury, from where he developed and created a body of abstract paintings, shown at the former Bear Lane Gallery at Oxford and Playhouse Theatre Gallery, also at Oxford until 1966.
A little later, in 1963 Sir Terry Frost RA moved to Banbury from St. Ives. The two met and George got to know Sir Terry well, visiting each others studios frequently, continuing contact until 2003. 

George recalls; "In 1963, for the first time, up the steps to the double fronted, red brick house at the top of Old Parr Road, traditional, and perhaps, a little austere, the exterior contrasting dramatically with the riot of colour within. Joyous, exuberant paintings just about everywhere, kids just about everywhere, and Kath in the kitchen orchestrating everything, including the liberal supplies of coffee in those hand thrown pottery mugs; on the landing, that big yellow triptych, and those little Alfred Wallis paintings on cardboard scraps that Terry cherished so much, on the mantelpiece."

"Later talking with him about the bold primary red, black, and yellow ‘abstracts’ on the painted narrow boats on the Oxford Canal, the wonderful, dynamic ‘faces’ of the lorries on the Oxford Road, the painting potential of the multiplicity of shapes and colours in the road signs in the town; particularly the circular ones, reflected so powerfully in colourful paintings such as ‘M17’, which Terry later described in his equally colourful language, as ‘a real snorter’."

Mel Gooding 'Terry Frost: Act & Image'

Personalised by Sir Terry Frost

George was awarded the Margaret Gardiner Prize for painting on the recommendation of Sir Terry in 1966. This accolade came about some time after Sir Terry had taken a collection of George's artwork to St. Ives for Margaret Gardiner to look at. George says of Terry "He was a big man with a giant of a personality, gregarious, passionate, and generous to a fault, layered and thoughtful, sensitive and insightful."

"I recall the time after he had moved from Banbury to Newlyn, of finding him, one hot summer’s day, in his studio, in his shorts and beret, struggling to pick up dozens of bits of paper and drawings that had dropped from a shelf onto the floor. I helped him with that, and a few minutes later he was enthusing about a pot of blue paint he had discovered and couldn’t wait to use, I said it reminded me of Klein blue and he agreed.

Later we spoke about pictorial depth, surface dynamics and relative colour values, he then placed a dab of thick white paint on a canvas and announced, ‘they like a bit of impasto too you know George’!, then, without saying a word, he went to a chest of drawers, took out an etching, signed and numbered it, wrapped it carefully in tissue paper and gave it to me.

Afterwards, we sat on the lawn, beneath that sweeping conifer tree that framed the view over Mount’s Bay with the Mount in the distance, drinking Mc Kewens lager direct from the can."

The etching with aquatint to the left 'Untitled (Newlyn) 1995' is on display at The Banbury Museum exhibition and was given to George Taylor personally by Sir Terry Frost. 

On another occasion in 2000, George recalls, "I particularly remember seeing Terry, in his distinctive red beret and coloured frame specs’, standing at the top of the staircase at the Royal Academy, at his retrospective there, hugging and greeting every guest individually 

Strangely, I can’t remember if he was wearing that same sweater on that day, the one he wore at his exhibition at the old Banbury Museum in 1995, that ‘trademark’ one, that had emblazoned on it, ‘Life is just a bowl of Cherries’........maybe, that says it all really."

Sir Terry Frost started painting briefly at evening classes before serving his Country during World War II. After joining the commandos, he was captured during the invasion of Crete and held a prisoner of war. During this time, he learned his art from British painter Adrian Heath. After the war ended Sir Terry studied at Camberwell School of Art and St. Ives School of Art. He lead the way in abstract art with his bold use of colour and distinctive shapes. In 1992, he was elected a Royal Academician and knighted in 2000.
Sir Terry Frost died in 2003, aged 87, near his home in Newlyn, Cornwall.

Visit The Banbury Museum to see George Taylor's contributions at the 'Frost, Family and Friends' exhibition. 

Banbury Museum, Spiceball Park Road, Banbury, OX16 2PQ

George Taylor

Copyright © text 2017 by George Taylor.  All rights reserved.

Telephone: 01295 753752
Website: Banbury Museum