For nearly two decades, A.J Taylor has regularly exhibited in Australia in solo and group shows. In 2018, he was the People’s Choice Winner for both the John Leslie Art Prize at Gippsland Art Gallery and the Sunshine Coast Prize at Caloundra Regional Gallery.
Taylor’s paintings reflect a sustained engagement with the Australian landscape. In this particular series, Pink Ash, he was inspired by an Australian native tree found throughout Queensland and northern New South Wales. It is particularly common on the Sunshine Coast, and on the artist’s property.
“Intriguingly, Pink Ash is neither pink nor an ash. As with many Australian trees, its name is misleading, having been derived not from any botanical observation, but rather the quality of its timber insofar as it resembled that of known European trees. What we commonly call maple, cedar, oak, beech and ash actually have no relationship to those species.
For me landscape painting is a precarious balancing act of self-consciously testing the essential paradox inherent in all representational painting in which two-dimensional abstract qualities of line, shape and colour compete with a sense of illusionistic space. While it is important that the image is sufficiently convincing, a closer look reveals choppy marks and gestures that seem at any point about to dissolve into abstraction.
The Pink Ash is a fascinating subject to play with because its smooth, pale bark is usually covered with irregular combinations of variously coloured scars, mosses and lichen, so that what seems to be a carefully rendered tree trunk in a forest becomes, on closer examination, no more than a series of flat blocks of colour stacked on top of each other.”
ABOUT THE ARTIST Taylor’s work is represented in public and corporate collections, including Artbank, BHP Billiton, Macquarie Bank and the Museum of Brisbane, Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra, as well as in private collections throughout Australia and internationally. He has been a finalist in a number of prizes, including the Wynne Prize, Fleurieu Art Prize and the Hawkesbury Art Prize.
Image: A.J. Taylor Hillside with pink ash 2018 oil on board 91.5 x 91.5
