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

Seasurge Penwith

This work is a three-dimensional visual composite of several locations on the Penwith coast where the tidal surges interact dynamically and dramatically with the hard, geological landscape.

At Gwennap Head, for example, the red and the black and white navigation markers, appear incongruous in the natural landscape and have a strange, other-worldly feel, rather like the surreal, geometric sculptural objects in some of the paintings of Paul Nash, or of Giorgio De Chirico. 

However, to describe these artefacts literally in a piece such as this would not be apposite, as the work is about extreme movement, colour and physical energy, so perhaps in the disorienting maelstrom of a coastal storm, the red cone becomes less distinct and more blurred.

My painting from 2009, titled Wild Sea Rising, (in Gallery 1 of my web site) is concerned with the natural power and uncontrollable force of the ocean expressed in a painterly expressionistic manner, whilst in Seasurge Penwith the interaction between water, wind and coast is described using three dimensional materials.

Wild Sea Rising by George Taylor

In his work, the late Cornish born painter Peter Lanyon, often depicts a complex version of landscape from multiple angles, rather than from the conventional single ‘window’ viewpoint, thus the image becomes an all-encompassing expression of experience, albeit in two dimensions. Lanyon also made three dimensional constructions in order to translate into visual terms complex phenomenological interaction.


George Taylor

December 2020

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

 

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