The next Friday evening demonstration will be held on 10th May in Market Hill Rooms from 8.00 to 10.00pm when Stephen Taylor will be giving a talk entitled ‘Oak Trees and Oil Paint : Outdoor painting and digital Imagery’.
Stephen studied Fine Art at Leeds University, worked on perception and technique at Essex University and as a visiting student at Yale. After an artist residency then teaching both art and art history part-time Stephen started his own practical painting journey. Throughout this time a wide range of private commissions helped him to develop his work.
In the 90’s he reorganised his career to focus on landscape. Between 1999 and 2007 he worked exclusively in a single field in North Essex, which yielded two exhibitions in Cambridge and London, demonstrating what concerted attention to a single place could offer contemporary art. The story is told in the artist’s book “Oak: one tree, three years, fifty paintings” (2011).
An altarpiece, The Hospitality of Abraham, for The Church of The Most Holy Trinity, Reading, 2004, is an exception to this landscape work, though it sets redemptive figures within the created world.
Stephen is currently painting water in a small valley in Wales, and further developing a method of mapping colour textures from digital HDR images to help parse complex natural scenes.
All of Stephen’s paintings are either finished on the spot over several days, or derived from on the spot colour studies and built up in the studio using colour texture selections from digital images. Stephen will give an illustrated talk on the the reasons behind his approach and methods. Studio samples(studies & computer printouts) and catalogues will be available for people to look through.
Examples of Stephen’s work can be seen on his website.
Paintings – Stephen Taylor Paintings
Free admission for Royston Arts Society members; £4.00 fee for non-members on the door , no pre-booking required