EARTH TRIP

Taylor began using tar mixed with house paint and acrylic varnish after his return from Afghanistan in 1999, where he was in charge of the Swiss Red Cross mission in Herat near the Iranian and Turkmenistan border.

From the contradictory religious ambience of a war-torn country feared for its terrorists to the holidaying, happy calm of a Mediterranean island, the context and subjects of his work illustrate his intense spiritual and artistic journey of the past eight years, which may be characterized by his use of "organic" materials.

Tar is in fact the "destructive distillation" of wood, peat, petroleum and coal down to a liquid, viscous substance. It has been used to seal boats, waterproof sails, prevent rust on buildings and, in Finland, it has even historically been considered one of the best forms of disinfectant and binding substance to heal wounds.

The universal nature of Taylor's tar painting on canvas stretched over timber frames is reflected in the classical format of 4 to 5 set panels, a polyptych, which has its origins in religious painting on alterpieces for churches and cathedrals.

The multi-panel series was also used by the Japanese Edo painters on woodblocks, including 400 years of Ukiyo-e, "pictures of the floating world" showing legends, landscapes and famous courtesans, sumo wrestlers and actors. The Earth Trip panels exude an absorbing light that filters beige brown tones and the meditative colours of traditional Japanese painting.

For this latest series of painting and photography, Taylor mixes actual natural elements like beach sand and sea salt, tap water and canvas, to create an enigmatic Taeuschung (camouflage, beguilement, illusoriness or most commonly, deception); a deceiving of the viewer«s senses when seeing the spectacle of his massive works that cover entire walls.

The pictures are larger than humans, almost "door size" so that you can enter a world larger than life, curiously microscopic and magnifying the natural world.

As one gazes at any one of the Earth Trip painting series, you feel that you are about to fall into a rock pool or else you are already submerged and sitting at the bottom of it. They make you feel like merging with a coastal stone formation in all its rough, pockmarked texture, walking along a beach at low tide or becoming part of the magnified barnacles, seaweed and fungus luminously growing on a rock.

The photographic series also called EARTH TRIP are close up photos of these paintings, placing the natural elements processed by Taylor on canvas in another dimension again, is it a scientific examination of spirituality perhaps?

Medium and technique:

Hand sponged industrial paints and tar/bitumen varnish on canvas with distilled tar and white paint, using acrylic varnish to glue the sand on the canvas. Timber frames. Taylor generally uses 10 - 30 layers of tar and house paint, slow dried by the dry sea air and sunshine on Ibiza island.