Howard Taylor

(1918-2001)

Tree Line with Cloud Shadow, 1993

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Galerie Dusseldorf, Perth
Private collection, Perth, acquired from above in 1993

EXHIBITED
Howard Taylor, Drawings and Paintings, Galerie Dusseldorf, Perth, 1 - 29 August 1993, cat. 9
Howard Taylor: Phenomena, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 5 February - 2 May 2004

LITERATURE
Ted Snell, Howard Taylor: Forest Figure, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Western Australia, 1995, p. 212
Gary Dufour, Howard Taylor: Phenomena, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 2004, p. 116 (illus.), 149


'As a celebration of his seventy-fifth birthday the Gallerie Dusseldorf opened an exhibition of Howard Taylor's new works on 1 August 1993. Typically it was a show that not only rounded off some previously unfinished business but it also broke new ground by introducing several new avenues of research.

The recurring theme of this shows was, once again, a guide to viewing the natural world. The paintings and drawings were a kind of instruction manual for looking. Howard had documented the forms of the forest with veracity and precision that comes from decades of patient observation and a deep respect for the subject and his studies for the large painting Tree Island describe the strange conical clumps of forest that dot the area around Northcliffe. In the centre the fertile soil promotes the growth of huge karri trees but, as the fertility diminishes, so does the size of the trees until the outer rim is nothing more than an outcrop of low scrub..

The process of perception continued as the major sub-theme of the exhibition and each work involves examination of the phenomenon of sight. The Tree Line series for example, reduces the landscape down to four horizontal bars of colour. However, while the means may be reduced, the potential for the eye to decode and interpret this information is endlessly stimulated. Through a judicious treatment of the surface and a subtle, diverse choice of colour, the artist recreates the experience of seeing clouds, sky, trees and a green field meet on the horizon. The structural possibilities of this event are exploited to the full and our sensory mechanisms for decoding the information are both engaged and revealed at the same time..

The Tree Line series is the best possible way of celebrating a seventy-fifth birthday. They are paintings that contribute to the artist's ongoing line of research into the natural environment and how we visually interact with it, while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of that research even wider than before.'

Ted Snell, Howard Taylor: Forest Figure, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Western Australia, 1995, pp. 133-136