Nearing, oil on board

 

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Copyright © text 2024 & image 1963 by George Taylor.  All rights reserved. 

Nearing
Oil on board
71.50cm x 82.00cm
1963 

I made this painting extra curricular, over sixty one years ago, when I was eighteen years of age, in an art school atmosphere that was definitely not conducive to such things, and sometimes was actively hostile, but mostly just indifferent. The primary objective being, at that time, to train students for formal examinations in another tradition with different values. I had made a number of non-figurative paintings by this time, and these early works were the precursors to many more in an abstract genre I have made subsequently, over a period in excess of sixty years. Originally the painting was titled Grey Composition 1, but I grew tired of titling my paintings solely by reference to the dominant colours and Nearing seemed compositionally more apposite. 

It is not a self consciously minimalistic piece, but essentially is an exercise in including only what is necessary and thus, of excluding the extraneous, this approach applied to the deliberately restrained colour range used in the painting, as well as to the forms.

At that time, together with a passionate interest in the work of a number of other, then living painters, I was especially interested in the work of the late William Scott, and to those who know this artist’s work, his influence may be vaguely discernible, especially in the suspended box shape to the left with the circular form to the top, although this is more abstracted than Scott’s forms which were sometimes directly derived from household objects. 

I was particularly interested in the sense of ‘balanced tension’ created by the circular form suspended within the square form at the top left, which itself ‘hangs’ from the top of the painting, and the red coloured quarter arc shape which intrudes from the right. 

In 1964 I was able to afford the first monograph on Scott by Alan Bowness, I was fascinated to discover that Scott had quoted a passage by Michael Rothenstein from: Looking at Pictures, which has subsequently lodged firmly in my consciousness: 

‘I find beauty in plainness, in a conception which is precise... A simple idea which to the observer in its intensity must inevitably shock and leave a concrete image in the mind.’

This tenet has endured, and has influenced much of my work since, but unfortunately, time and regular ongoing reference, has left my Scott monograph very much the worse for wear – I would not want to be without it though, even given its dilapidated state.

George Taylor

December 2024  

When we got There

 

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Copyright © text 2023 & image 2008 by George Taylor.  All rights reserved.

When we got There
Private Collection
Mixed Media and Acrylic on Board
Image size: 35cms x 45cms

This piece essentially is about the plastic qualities of paint and colour.

The paint is applied with a certain gestural immediacy, but most definitely not unthinkingly, and with an energy and passion that hopefully, is reflected in the dynamic of the composition which in turn, hopefully also, reflects a kind of restrained exuberance.

It may be construed as a kind of landscape, (or a map) or more likely a seascape, but more of a Seascape of the Mind than a specific physical location. Maybe a recollection of an early journey to the seaside, and that small bay or cove that suddenly comes into view as one passes that last headland.

That special emotional feeling that one gets at the end of a long, sometimes tedious journey by car or train, especially as a child, when the pent-up feelings of excitement and expectation are relieved by that particular sort of euphoria one experiences immediately upon reaching a coastal destination, and experiencing that first glimpse of the sea and breathing the first wafts of ozone into our lungs.

We feel a profound, almost primeval sense of connection, and often cannot wait to engage with the waves as they break onto the shore.

Is this connection so deep and enduring as to be an echo of our early amphibian ancestors emergence from the ocean some 375 million years ago in evolutionary time?

In effect, a sub-conscious memory of our Inner Fish, as palaeontologist Neil Shubin calls it, that almost literally, surfaces at such moments.

The relatively primitive creature that came out of the water, and on to the land all those years ago whose limbs and organs were the evolutionary precursors to our own.

George Taylor
April 2023

Wreckpiece

 

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Copyright © text & image 2022 by George Taylor.  All rights reserved.

Wreckpiece

Metal, dowel rods, cardboard and acrylic on canvas in deep, white painted timber frame

64cms x 64cms

2022

The coast of the British Isles is littered with shipwrecks of almost every type, and the coast of Cornwall because of its location and topography, inevitably has its fair share.

Although born in Devonport, the untutored painter Alfred Wallis is often considered as ‘Cornish,’ as for most of his life he lived in St Ives, the fact that he lived in St Ives was fortuitous, as it was there in 1928 that the painters Ben Nicholson and Cristopher Wood ‘discovered’ him – had he been living elsewhere, it is quite possible that he might have remained unknown.

His various paintings on the theme of the Wreck of the Alba, graphically depict that eponymous steam propelled vessel as it was quite literally being overwhelmed by massive waves at Porthmeor Beach on 31^st January 1938. Despite the valiant efforts of the St Ives lifeboat, which itself capsized and was washed on to the rocks, five members of Alba’s crew were lost. Most of the remains of the vessel have been washed away, but the boiler is still discernible at exceptionally low tides.

Vastly different, from Wallis’ powerful and expressive painterly recollections of an event, the aftermath of which, he almost certainly witnessed, are the incisive, mostly black and white photographs of wrecks of mainly, but not exclusively, sailing craft around the coast of Devon and Cornwall taken since 1869 by successive generations of the Gibson family of the Scilly Isles.

Wreckpiece, is different again, and although essentially an abstraction, allows for an imaginative response in the viewer, the various elements of its composition perhaps ‘standing in’ for objects, rather than imitating them in meticulous detail. The piece of found, weathered metal, for example, is visually interesting and plays a key part in the composition, but at the same time may serve to represent a piece of marine wreckage – possibly a remnant of a boiler, or a prow and the broken cylinder, possibly a funnel.

The intersecting rods are essentially an abstract, sculptural construct, serving to hold the image firmly in place, but may also serve as co-ordinates, indicating the location of a shipwreck.

 

George Taylor

April 2022

Paint, Emotion, Landscape, Space and Weather

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

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

Spacestorm

 

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Copyright © text 2021 & image 2016 by George Taylor.  All rights reserved.

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

Encounter

 

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Copyright © text 2020 & image 2010 by George Taylor.  All rights reserved.

Encounter

2010, 80cms x 80cms, acrylic paint, textile, paper and pencil on canvas. 

Visual art that does not pretend to be a constructed representation of something else in the real world but is itself a discrete entity in the real world, should like music, have an autonomous, ‘life of its own.’ It should have an energy, a vitality, should excite the senses and the emotions, hopefully, beyond self-conscious thought and words. 

Unless there is an immediate and lasting connection with the senses and vitally, directly with the observers’ nervous system, it is likely to serve no purpose beyond the decorative. 

The late American abstract expressionist painter Franz Kline, when asked to explain his abstraction said: 'I’ll answer you in the same way Louis Armstrong does when they ask him what it means when he blows his trumpet. Louis says, Brother, if you don’t get it, there is no way I can tell you.’ 

There is a tendency to over intellectualise painting and art in general and of course, this the territory of the critics and the curators, but frankly, with the entity in front of you, you either respond or you do not. There may of course be degrees of response, and provided you do not automatically reject within a few seconds, as many do, more complete and satisfying responses may occur given prolonged engagement. 

However, as Louis firmly implied, there is no way that he, or anyone else can explain, or teach you how you should respond, or what you should feel, but the receptive viewer will know instinctively if that vital connection has been made. 

From a suite of four paintings: Encounter, Odyssey, Enigma and Quest, on Gallery 7 of my website. 

George Taylor 
October 2020 

The Wind Grabs the Whisper

 

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Copyright © text 2020 & image 2010 by George Taylor.  All rights reserved.

The Wind Grabs the Whisper

This work is mixed media on oil board, and is set within a hardwood frame.

All the pictures one makes have a strong emotional self connection, that almost goes without saying, otherwise what is the point of making them, but some have an especially deep bond, and for that reason one would be reluctant to let them go; this, for me, is one of those pictures, and although it has been shown a number of times, I would miss its presence in our home.

It is mixed media on board, made in 2010, and although it has the appearance of being heavily collaged, as well as painted, there are in fact only a few collaged elements, in the sense that they originally were once discrete elements which later have been adhered to the picture surface.

The technique, which I have developed myself over many years, involves creating a complex ground of largely pastel, carefully fixed in numerous layers and, then cut back into using sharp blades whilst adding gestural and considered marks in acrylic and pencil. It is very much a process of building up colour shape and texture and then removing some of the previous layers, over and over again, until one arrives at a resolved image.

There is an indication of an horizon line, so most people construe it as a kind of landscape, albeit a very abstracted one, but it is a ‘landscape’ that has pictorial movement and energy, rather than a literal rendering of a landscape that is fixed and static. The shapes and marks move with and against each other to create a restless dynamic that although made of fixed materials, like paint and canvas remnants, is visually not ‘still’ at all.

Essentially, non figurative pictures don’t need descriptive titles, as they have no obligation to describe, or to refer to anything beyond themselves, let alone to offer some kind of narrative, but often a carefully considered title can add something to the impact of an image, without detraction; sometimes in a lyrical, poetical sense.

This image operates somewhere in the place between experience and imagination, so in the interaction of visual energy, in the marks, colours and textures, made in a great variety of ways, maybe one can at least symbolically, given a degree of engagement, discern how the wind may have ‘grabbed the whisper’?

George Taylor
August 2020

Taylor-Thwaites Studios, Stonewalls, Sturt Road, Charlbury, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, OX7 3EP
Tel: 01608 810174
Email: gtaylor44@aol.com  
Web: www.georgetaylorart.com/gallery1

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

Homage to Barcelona

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Copyright © text 2020 & image by George Taylor.  All rights reserved.

Barcelona, the place, is about energy, vitality, and colour and thus, inevitably about art.

The art of Joan Miro, Picasso, Gaudi and, for me especially, Antoni Tapies, all of whom are celebrated by museums in the city.

The unique verve and dynamic of the Catalonian capital is compelling, and in my view, can only be effectively be expressed visually and emotionally in abstracted form. The only real concession to a landscape format in the picture is a broad hint of a horizon line as if looking down spatially on to the city from the lofty heights of Montjuic Hill, where the architecturally inspiring Fundacio Joan Miro is located.

Thus, this image is the synthesis of an experience, rather than a single viewpoint ‘representation’, an aggregate of organised fragments of a vital, living place - movement, colour, form and space, and all those other qualities which make the city greater than the sum of its parts.

How else could one pay homage to the essence of this unique place in two-dimensional terms, mere figuration could not do justice to its spirit, its history or its art.

However, it is vital that a painting transcends its ‘subject’ and becomes something else, something autonomous, that is able to stand on its own, otherwise what would be the point of making it. In that sense, the title ‘Homage to Barcelona’ is essentially, a term of reference.

George Taylor
February 2020

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Should you wish to view this work in our studio gallery, please call us on 01608 810174. It is attractively framed in limewashed hardwood and set in a wide, deep cut, white mount.

‘Homage to Barcelona’ has been shown at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists Gallery, in Birmingham, of which George is a Full Member, and was also included in the selection for the Ironstone Art Prize at Banbury Museum in 2018. It also appeared on the UK Artists online ‘Artsy’ Gallery page.

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

When Only the Moon Rages

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Copyright © text 2019 & image 2009 by George Taylor.  All rights reserved.

The title of this mixed media painting is borrowed from a poem called ‘In my Craft or Sullen Art’ by Dylan Thomas.

I made the work in 2009, I was familiar with the poem, but chose the title after completing it, as for me, when making a painting, it is vital that I am as free as is possible from the direct influence of a  conscious subject.   

The  intention is to convey a sense of drama, in the contrast between the hot colours in the lower third of the picture, and the cooler, deep blues in the upper two thirds, the intersected and conjoined diversity of marks across the picture plane, contribute to a feeling of circular motion and restless energy.

The picture is also about materials per se, not merely as a vehicle for creating an illusion, but materials ‘of themselves’. The lower half is comprised of thick impasto, applied by whatever blades and tools seemed most appropriate at the time,  sometimes the paint is scraped off, to show previous layers.

The colour to the upper half is vigorously applied by brush and palette knife. In parts, some masking has been used, and in others the surface is gouged through to the paper;  the angular, but nebulous marks are made with pastel and chalk.

The aim of this truly, mixed media approach, is to create as much surface interest as possible, whilst at the same time, striving to make an immediate and visually arresting image.

George Taylor

October 2019

Taylor-Thwaites Studios, Stonewalls, Sturt Road, Charlbury, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, OX7 3EP

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This picture is on Saunders Waterford (300lb) Cotton Mould Made Acid Free Paper, set within a deep cut, off-white mount within a lime-washed hardwood frame.  It measures 81 centimetres x 100 centimetres overall and will be included in Mallam’s, Modern and Post War British Art Sale in Oxford on Friday 6^th December 2019. (max.fisher@mallams.co.uk  01865241358  

Quantum Moment

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Copyright © text 2019 & image 2009 by George Taylor.  All rights reserved.

Quantum Moment

I made ‘Quantum Moment’ ten years ago, in 2009.

Essentially, it is about energy, a ‘controlled explosion’ of colour and form, and of course, could allude to a number of things, or to nothing, or at least to ‘no thing’.

A concentrated image, possibly emblematic of the constant destruction of innumerable galaxies far larger than our own throughout the immensity of time and space.

On the other hand, the title may allude to what is commonly referred to as ‘The Big Bang’ – the fraction of an instant some 13.8 billion years or so ago, when science tells us, the known universe and thus, time itself began; ostensibly from ‘no thing’.

A human-made rendering in paint and other materials essentially ‘of itself’, possibly symbolic of, but certainly no more than that, of an event so extraordinarily complex as to be beyond meaningful human visual or oral description or representation. But out of which, much later on in cosmic time, and as a consequence of evolutionary circumstances, human-kind evolved, with the capacity to make art, and to attempt to understand the circumstances in which he found him/herself.

When asked by Hans Hoffman if he painted from nature, Jackson Pollock retorted, ‘I am nature’!

Possibly, one of the most veracious, and thus one of the most valid artistic statements ever made.

George Taylor

August 2019

Taylor-Thwaites Studios, Stonewalls, Sturt Road, Charlbury, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, OX7 3EP

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Should you wish to view ‘Quantum Moment’ in our studio gallery please call us on 01608 810174

This work is in mixed media, measures 80 centimetres x 100 centimetres, it is on Saunders Waterford (300lb) Cotton Mould Made Acid Free Paper, and is set within a deep off white mount within a hardwood frame.

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

...and THIS is why I love Artweeks!

Click on the images to enlarge.

Copyright © images by George Taylor.  All rights reserved.

Amidst a sea rolling with giant waves it’s easy to become disorientated, and faced with the Oxfordshire Artweeks guide it’s similarly tricky to orientate yourself. You’re desperate to dive in the enticing waters, but you’re not sure what kind of an experience you’re going to encounter, as the offer is simply overwhelming.

How to find the needles in the haystacks? Separate the wheat from the chaff? Find those diamonds in the rough? Sometimes I think you’ve just got to dive in and hope for the best.

I hadn’t been to Charlbury until last week. What a charming place it is. Bigger than I’d anticipated; and, that Friday, full to the rafters of Artweeks activities and guide grasping gad-abouts, hubby, off-spring and I included. In and around Charlbury we saw some good art, some ‘fun’ art, some inoffensive living-room ‘art’, some garden art… and at venue 161 we saw some stunning art. 


Venue 161 offered everything one really wants in an Artweeks venue. A ‘Through the Keyhole’ style insight into who lives in a house like this. Turns out two artists who’ve recently relocated back to the Cotswolds from the Isle of Wight do. They were both exhibiting in different parts of their house, and exhibiting in the glass house in their back garden, which was once home to a hot tub, was the nephew of one of the artists. The artists’ work was unrelated, the welcome was warm, the exchange was fun, and the art was interesting… In a really good way. Practicing artists, at different stages in their developing careers, working through their concepts, and happy to chat to curious visitors about their processes and inspiration. The artists I’m referring to were George Taylor, Janice Thwaites, and Tim Collard – click through to their websites, and return to check their work out as part of the Oxfordshire Artweeks Christmas exhibition in November (there’ll be more info on the Artweeks website in due course), or get in touch with George Taylor through his website as he offers private studio visits by prior arrangement.

Anyway, the work… it was all good, and all interesting, but George Taylor’s was exceptional (see the below images). You know that slap on the forehead between the eyes sensation? That shock encounter of something really quite special that takes you by surprise because you weren’t actively looking for it? That. I sneaked up on George, he was sat at his computer with his back to the exhibition space. This gave me time to roam, inspect and admire his work without that feeling of being ‘watched by the artist’, which is sometimes a bit uncomfortable, particularly if the work’s rubbish and you spend your time circulating trying to think of positive feedback that doesn’t leave you feeling like a liar. Anyway, as I circulated in his direction I found myself moved to exclaim just how much I was enjoying his work. The layers, the textures, the composition, the application of paint and pastels, the scrapes, the scratches, the scalpel cutting away and revealing unexpected colour combinations – bloody brilliant! All works imbued with a very specific sense of place. Waves and washes of atmosphere, abstracted landscapes and seascapes all with a very real sense of history and time. Many of them watery and Isle of Wight-esque, Taylor’s work is sensational, in the literal sense of the word. These sculptural, almost architectural, paintings take the viewer on a journey, they’re mesmeric, captivating. This is highly idiosyncratic, great painting. It’s the kind of work that you want to invest in, and that you want to invest time in. I can imagine discovering new aspects of it as it grows older with you – like an adventure that you and the painting would embark upon together. I could go on, I could definitely invest, and may very well do just that come November, and THIS is why I love Artweeks!

Original post: http://sarahmayhewcraddock.com/2014/05/23/and-this-is-why-i-love-artweeks/

George Taylor website

Spaces of Invention and Places of Imagination

Occupying both Galleries 1 and 2 at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists Gallery is a major exhibition of selected, mixed media works from the year 2000 to the present by the artist George Taylor who I have admired for a long time. The exhibition entitled, Spaces of Invention and Places of Imagination, will include two paintings from 1961 and 1963, completed just after the outset of George’s career which now spans more than 54 years.

Click on the images to enlarge.

Copyright © images by George Taylor.  All rights reserved.

Wild Sea Rising

George Taylor’s long development as an artist has come from a constant belief in painting in his own search for a visual language, which through his integrity and commitment towards abstraction has resulted in a body of work which may be considered as equivalent, not necessarily for a specific physical landscape feature so much as an allusion to an unseen, but intensely felt force in nature at a particular time and place.

George Taylor, The Air’s Buoyancy and the Sun’s Rays.

There is for George an optimistic belief in the nature of creativity experienced through the dynamics of risk-taking in visual terms. He explores the potential within the paradoxical nature of a space between certainty and doubt. It is the very nature of this dynamic that continues to inform his art and provide the fundamental principles underlying his purpose as an artist.

George Taylor, Firebird.

George Taylor says of his work: “for over 45 years I have sought to explore the mysteriousness of living through painting. So far as I can see, it is the magic of mystery that creates great art and art without that magic is lifeless.”

Exhibition image

George Taylor at the RBSA

Original post at creativecloudfix

George Taylor website