Born in Melbourne, and based in Los Angeles, Andrew Taylor creates subtle, engaging and powerful paintings which draw upon the natural world. Each canvas is testament to the artist’s enduring interest in recording the rapidly moving world around him in the most still manner possible. In a sense, each work is a metaphor for the modern condition which seeks out equilibrium and calm amidst chaos and commerce. Though the artist works in response to intensity of contemporary society, Taylor’s work is neither nihilistic nor pessimistic. Rather, the canvasses celebrate what is still wonderful and possible in the twenty-first century. These are artworks which are made all the more vibrant by their refusal to be swept up by a digitized, commodified and globalised age.

The works are created with oil paint, glazes, impasto and various natural materials such as crushed cerium, copper, titanium, zinc and silver. The subject of the work is drawn from a canopy of overhead foliage (conopeum in latin), and there is an inherent Eastern sensibility to the paintings, most notable in works drawing upon a cherry blossom. The paintings recall an eastern philosophical aesthetic that celebrates serenity and harmony. This, combined with his luminous use of colour and metallics, makes for canvasses that seemingly exist outside of any time or place. They are an enigmatic phenomenon, transcending the decorative and the realities of the context in which they were made. In a world saturated with images and hyperventilating with speed, Taylor finds room to pause and celebrate.
Andrew Taylor has shown widely throughout Australia, where he is represented by the Tim Olsen Gallery in Sydney. His work is several public collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, Shepparton Art Gallery, Art Bank Australia, the Telstra Collection at the Australian National University in Canberra and in several high profile private collections in Australia, USA and France.