"With collage you find an image and then immediately you look for what you can put with this image which will make it stranger"
– Michael Taylor 2020
Michael Taylor is one of Australia's most significant artists. At 86, Taylor has exhibited regularly since 1963 with 96 works held by the National Gallery of Australia alone with many more in State Gallery Collections, regional, institutional, and corporate collections, and numerous private collections. Gallery 9 is proud to present Michael Taylor with an expansive exhibition of new paintings and 43 intriguing and dynamic collages.
Michael Taylor is not new to collage, having worked in the medium for a long period, but to this new collection he brings the well honed hand of a visual master, and a new element in the found frame, collected from the his home town of Cooma.
Found frames have a connection right back to the Impressionists who extended their new mode to framing and hanging. Their first exhibition together in 1874 displayed the paintings spaced apart, instead of edge to edge like the jigsaw-puzzle walls of the Salon, and by 1877 Pissarro and Degas were showing their work in white rather than gilded frames. In 1879 and 1880 coloured frames appeared in shades which complemented the overall colours of the paintings. Their construction was equally avante garde and simple: flat architrave profiles, or convex cushion mouldings (perhaps for the taste of clients, or to better cater to American galleries, few of these original frames survive as paintings were stripped and re-set in more extravagant frames). Taylor has seemingly captured this original spirit with his found frames and, in the context of his paintings, these found frames are as much a part of the work as they define the bounds and carry the picture plane.
The contours of imigary are difficult to identify in the works. With the exception of Barrenjoey, landmarks are largely absent. Instead, the pictorial plane is brought through as layered, light-filled and often watery—a textural and musical space that pulls on ones imagination.
In the series is of course five new paintings, exuding all of the thumping confidence of a true Australian master still performing at his peak.
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Waterside 2019
oil and oil stick on canvas
97 × 102 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Wall-Map 2019
oil on canvas
97 × 102 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Swimming Pool 2019
oil and oil stick on canvas
96 × 122 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
In Hospital 2019
oil and oil stick on canvas
102 × 97 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Hospital Ward 2019
framed collage
55 × 45.5 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Recollections 2019
framed collage
33 × 43 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Cavern 2019
framed canvas
53.5 × 43.5 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Vixen 2019
framed collage
58.5 × 48 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Barrenjoey 2019
framed collage
96.5 × 96.5 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Le Plaisir 2019
framed collage
32 × 31 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
The Little Hill 2019
framed collage
56 × 46 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Watercourse 2019
framed collage
61.5 × 76.5 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Shadowy Waterline 2019
framed collage
54 × 44 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Rocks Near the Sea 2019
framed collage
66 × 91.5 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Crevasse 2019
framed collage
52 × 44 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Secret Places 2019
framed collage
45 × 58.5 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Tomorrow 2019
framed collage
30 × 33.5 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
One Fine Morning 2019
framed collage
45.5 × 53 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Blue Collage 2019
framed collage
23.5 × 29 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Out of the Blue 2019
framed collage
30 × 33.5 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Seafront 2019
framed collage
73 × 53 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Rock Gully 2019
framed collage
38 × 28 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Escapade
framed collage
65 × 53 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
One Night 2019
framed collage
66.5 × 58.5 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Breakwater 2019
framed collage
93 × 68 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Stony Hill 2019
framed collage
48 × 58 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Black Moonlight 2019
framed collage
66 × 91 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Music Hall 2019
framed collage
91 × 71 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Garden Gate 2019
framed collage
38.5 × 42.5 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Catalonia 2019
collage on stretched canvas
51 × 40.5 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
The Garden 2019
collage on stretched canvas
60.5 × 51 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Ochre Interior 2019
collage on stretched canvas
61 × 50.5 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Minotaur 2019
collage on stretched canvas
51 × 40.5 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Bush Hospital 2019
framed collage
32 × 40 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Clinic 2019
framed collage
51 × 43.5 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Hospital Ward 2019
oil on canvas
97 × 102 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
The Fig Tree 2019
framed collage
47 × 29 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Early Years 2019
framed collage
36 × 31 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
September '19 2019
framed collage
80.5 × 100.5 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Workplace Secrets 2019
framed collage
45.5 × 58 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Crash 2019
framed colalge
38.5 × 38.5 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Smash 2019
framed collage
58 × 42 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Tuesday 1AM 2019
framed collage
22 × 27 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
The Rape 2019
framed collage
24 × 55 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Rockfall 2019
framed collage
40 × 39 cm
MICHAEL TAYLOR
In Hospital 2019
framed collage
60 × 44.5 cm