Paint, Emotion, Landscape, Space and Weather

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Earthstorm 5

Earthstorm 1, 2, 3 and 5
Mixed media on board

I recently placed an image on my website of a painting that I had rediscovered in my studio store, and at about the same time, had also rediscovered in my image archive, images of three paintings of similar size which I made about fifteen years ago, which are no longer in my possession.

The discovery of these four modest paintings from my Earthstorm Series caused me to think about the relationship between the five critical components of their content and thus by extension, their meaning and how this transcends the sum of their parts and furthermore, how the paint synthesises and ameliorates all five components into a coherent whole but retains its innate qualities as material.

Earthstorm 1

It seems to me that paintings that celebrate, and do not attempt to disguise or deny the plastic qualities of the material from which they are made, are generally more potent as ‘paintings’, rather than those in which paint is utilised as a vehicle in an effort to create a simulacrum of objective reality.

Earthstorm 2

To allow the paint to live and breathe, not to stifle or to camouflage its intrinsic character or to allow it to be subsumed and merely become a vehicle for pictorial illusion, a mere means to an end, is in my view, central to the act of painting.

Earthstorm 3

Turner is perhaps, the archetypical example of a landscape painter who masterfully uses paint first and foremost to fuse emotion, landscape, space and weather in a coherent, compelling image, but the paint remains as material evidence of the act of painting, recognising, rather than denying its innate nature and physicality.

For me, some other artists from more recent times, not necessarily landscape painters, who celebrate paint per se and the physical act of painting, often via direct expressionistic gesture, include Howard Hodgkin, Frank Auerbach, Peter Lanyon, Gillian Ayres, Willem de Kooning, Nicholas de Stael, and Helen Frankenthaler- although Frankenthaler often employs staining techniques in her work, she nonetheless, emphasises the importance of material and process.

 

George Taylor

December 2021

Rain, Sea and Wind

 

Rain, Sea and Wind
Pastel, Pencil and Acrylic on Board

This mixed media painting emanated from the extensive series of works I made for my ‘Flamborough Series’ in the late ‘eighties. I had spent a considerable amount of time exploring and experiencing the coastal landscape around Flamborough Head in preparation for an exhibition organised by the former Humberside County Council in 1991. The exhibition took place at two venues, the gallery at Bridlington Library and fittingly, at Flamborough Library.

(Since 1996 Flamborough Head has been administratively within the remit of the East Riding of Yorkshire Council)

I deliberately made the subjects comprising most of the pictures recognisable as distinctive features of this incredibly visually stimulating coastal landscape, as in 'Eve Rock'. But some of the pieces, I later reworked to emphasise, not so much, the distinctive physical topography, but the all-consuming impact of the immersive coastal weather, the dramatic light and the complexity of seabird flight that I had experienced during my walks amongst and around that remarkably singular coastal location. ‘Rain, Sea and Wind’ was one of these reworked pieces, as was ‘White Rock’.

Eve Rock
Pastel and Pencil on Board

White Rock
Pastel, Pencil and Acrylic on Board

I had also walked the coast path to observe the Old Harry Rocks formation in Dorset, and had taken a boat from Swanage to view these stunning, naturally sculpted rock formations from the sea and course, the well known Needles outcrop off the Isle of Wight, which is punctuated by the red and white banded, man made lighthouse, like a full stop, whereas the lighthouse at Flamborough is set back on the headland.

These formations are mainland chalk promontories, but on the west coast of Scotland we had driven across Mull, taken the ferry from Fionnphort to Iona, and then on by small boat to Staffa, as it happened, in spectacular, squally weather conditions, to experience at first hand the approach to that small, remote island, up to and into the imposing Fingal’s Cave, with its architectonic hexagonal volcanically formed basalt columns. This small landmass was possibly, long ago in geological time, a part of a much larger island which included Mull and Iona.

There is something intensely dramatic about approaching these massive geological configurations, formed by the erosive action of wind and wave over countless millennia, from the seaward aspect, but Flamborough Head offered such a wide range of visual interpretations, that I decided to make most of the topographical paintings from the landward view, but sometimes, also from the shore margins between tides.

George Taylor

August 2021

Fjordpiece

 

Fjordpiece 2021, a wall hung multi-dimensional work.
Image size: 55cms X 75cms
Paper, acrylic paint, cardboard, and balsa wood on heavyweight paper mounted on to board.

For the past few years, I have been exploring the colour blue, not entirely for its own sake, but also in relation to white.

Blue and white have a natural affinity and attract us at a subliminal elemental level, possibly because they are the colours of the space immediately above our heads and of the waters that surround us.

The blue affects and influences the white and vice versa.

Much of my recent work has a marine, oceanic feel, and this is far from accidental.

As a species, at a critical point in our evolution we emerged from the waters and began the long transition to becoming land creatures.

The constantly changing liminal space, between hard and soft, the sea and the land, the deep blue of the waves and the white spume as they break against the land, fascinates us and we are drawn to it inexorably.

Following yet another unimaginable passage of time, the continents will have shifted and the sea/shores we are familiar with will be elsewhere.

Where will our species be then?

George Taylor

June 2021

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.

Spacestorm

 

2016, Mixed Media on Board

Size 25cms x 44cms, including frame 50cms x 68.5cms. 

This painting employs a variety of mixed media techniques to visually describe the spatial dynamics of an incoming coastal storm and the relative insignificance of humans in relation to such powerful natural forces.
I have physically experienced many such coastal storms, especially when researching my 'Flamborough Series' in the very early 'eighties, but a particularly dramatic and thus, memorable instance took place on the North Cornish Coast at Portreath in the 1970's and was essentially the source for this picture.

Given this, it is not difficult to understand why Turner felt he had to lash himself bodily to a ship's mast in order to gain the direct experience necessary to paint 'Snow -Storm, Steam-Boat off a Harbour Mouth'.
In such circumstances, the portrayal of detail is futile, as the experience is all-consuming and overwhelming - only the controlled energy of expressionism will serve the purpose.

George Taylor
February 2021