STATEMENT
“My paintings are mainly the material manifestations resulting from impressions of places, events or moments that caused me to stop and think or just happened to be interesting. I also have ongoing relationships with colour, composition and perspective which can – and sometimes do – take over the original intent. I am a professional artist but am not too concerned with making accurate pictorial records – the camera and smartphone do it far more accurately than I ever will – but if a particular place, building, event, object, etc. sets me thinking I do like to investigate further. Having found a subject of interest, I like to explore it in visual terms. I find the aesthetic far more challenging than the reality.
Nowadays, most of the paintings are acrylic on cotton canvas although I have painted on composite and wood panels as well as sheet steel (car panels) in the past. Whilst I admire the painterly qualities of traditional oil paintings – particularly the Newlyn School – I have no desire to emulate them. I am also very taken by the work of those artists who contributed to the transport posters of the ’20s and ’30s, a fact that becomes evident from time to time. I work with only three colours, the primaries, plus black and white. Mixing is usually done on the palette rather than ‘wet on wet’. The result leaves flat areas of colour with little in the way of texture but a very close colour harmony.
My work has been exhibited in London and New York as well as East Anglia, the UK Midlands and South West and lately in France. Many of the paintings on this site are now in private collections in Europe, the USA and Australia. I work mainly towards open exhibitions and competitions but welcome commissions. I hope you enjoy viewing the paintings on this site as much as I enjoyed making them.”
BIOGRAPHY
Alan Taylor BA(Hons) ATC Born London 1942, Willesden County High, Hornchurch Grammar, Colchester School of Art, Stourbridge College of Art, University of Sussex.
At the age of 12, Alan Taylor moved from London with his parents to a small village on the edge of the Essex Marshes. It was here that an initial interest in painting began. In ‘63, he moved to North East Essex and began the first of several years full time art study. Whilst still a student at Colchester and, later, Stourbridge, and living in Wivenhoe, Essex, he became a member of the Wivenhoe Artists Group, exhibiting extensively in London, Colchester and East Anglia. In 1973 a Post Graduate Art Teachers Certificate from the University of Sussex. His first full-time Art Teaching post was in Essex at a Comprehensive School where he taught for three years. He then moved to Devon, opting for part-time art teaching and part-time painting alongside his partner Jo’s graphic design agency. The painting and teaching continued in and around the Exeter area for 10 years until they moved to France in 1988.
The painting continued in France with commissions, exhibitions, submissions to open competitions and personal research. An invitation to hold a solo show at the University of Caen in 2006 was followed by contributions to several Group shows in the Calvados area. In August 2010, he held a solo exhibition at the Chateau de Balleroy and has since participated in group shows in Domjean and Torigni, both in Manche, Basse Normandie.
Married to Jo Taylor, a web & graphic designer and illustrator, Alan Taylor has a daughter and two grandchildren. On returning from France in 2020, they bought a small property in the former tin mining area of Camborne in Cornwall.
Alan sadly passed away in April 2022.