SOUTH AFRICA 2003
FOUR GROUPS OF EIGHT
Paintings 1 - 8; 9 - 16; 17 - 24; 25 - 32
General Overview - Each group description is attached to the individual painting.
In this series, Taylor has used "real life" materials - animal skins - which he acquired in Johannesburg, South Africa. He visited South Africa several times during this period, with stays of up to 5 months at a time.
The country inspired him to create multimedia
artworks with a unique feature perhaps not seen in European abstract art
before: the vermilion or cadmium red-dyed hides which are prepared
traditionally by South Africans for trading - it is used there as a form
of currency.
Taylor also uses spotted cow hide as seen in
the first two groups of eight here. Again the hide was created by the
Zulu tribes people of South Africa. It is the focal point of the
paintings using mixed media on board, at least for the Groups One and
Two (please refer to the individual group descriptions by clicking on
paintings from the scroll bar below).
In this Euro-African series, the patch of
treated animal fur and skin is often split by the painting's panels so
that it creates a metaphysical, cross-purpose space: the patch of hide
is cut and placed in opposition to itself by two canvases. At times, the
breaking of this naturalistic entity is reinforced by the silvery,
papered and tarred patches reflecting the cow hide - sometimes the
artist even uses sheets or patches of metal to replicate the original or
natural materials and its traditional shapes.
It reminds the viewer of the original form of cow hide or animal skin, now reconstructed and treated a second time by the artist, instead of the Zulu, and then processed a third, fourth time or multiple times by the spectators who repeatedly view these works of art.
The elements of the raw materials are reframed
and restructured into a semi-neat patchwork or "visual architecture",
reinforced by the aluminium, tar and white house paint washing over the
rearranged materials.
Medium & Technique: all the panels are mixed media such as watery aluminum house paint, paper, glue tar/bitumen paint, sheets of metal and nails/bolts, patches cow skin turned to hide by the Zulu tribe in South Africa, purchased by the artist near Johannesburg.
All materials are painted by hand with a
regular, rectangular house sponge and affixed by tar paint on canvas,
stretched over wooden panels, with the dimensions 200 cm x 1m + 200 x 42
cm.
Artist's Own Words:
"South Africa plays an important role in my journey both on the artistic and personal level.
These horizons, where light, love, material and the questioning of a nation in full development, as much in its acceptance of history as in its dreams of sharing and freedom, have brought and still bring me today an almost essential nourishment."
