interview with visual artist, Zoe Taylor
Words | Baz Nichols
It is early December 2022, and Echtrai Edition 2 is about to roll off the press and into the world. The stunning front cover imagery was generously provided by the landscape painter, Zoe Taylor, an artist who specialises in landscapes that are at once arresting and deeply rooted with a sense of place. Most of the images are densely layered, stratified and scarified, with an intensity of dramatic movement, forces and cross-currents, as if each work has been gestated in the midst of a raging storm, or some bleak, remote location far removed from humanity . In fact the human presence is never seen in her pictures, but rather there is an implied presence captured in the lines of these dramatic vignettes. The image we commissioned for the cover is now a few years old, and Zoe’s latest works have evolved and developed further, yet perhaps with a more restrained approach and palette.
Zoe has exhibited far and wide in the UK , but her work can mostly be encountered and purchased at galleries in and around her Midlands studio. I caught up with her to ask her about her work and inspiration: :
BN: We met a few years back and collaborated on one of my developmental boxed poetry editions, The Land Incanted – back then I described your work as not being depictions of specific locations, but that they were evocations of a ‘generic non-place’ that comes from your imagination. Would you say that is an accurate description, or do you try to capture the essence of specific places and locations in your work?
ZT: The inspiration always comes from specific locations but I am never looking to depict a single place in a final piece but seeking to evoke more the feeling of being in a location which could be felt in any similar place.
BN: The ‘mood’ of a piece seems to be a very important element in most of your works – does this mood come from within you, and relate to how you are feeling at the time of painting, or is this a distinct and separate mood created just for the painting itself?
ZT: The ‘mood’ is my natural self when in these landscapes so very much from within me. I am naturally drawn to lost landscapes, places far from the pathway, abandoned. A sense of awe when a vast open vista lies before me with what can sometimes be epic skies to accompany the view.
BN: Place is obviously very important to you and your work – can you name the places that inspire you most, or those which perhaps have eventually made an impact on your work?
ZT: Having spent many, many years travelling from the Midlands to west Wales, The Black Mountains are always a huge draw for inspiration. It is usually large flat areas of land that I really love. Any moorland area is always a place I would return to.
In 2021, my photographer husband Nik Taylor and I, produced a body of work based on post industrial sites for a joint exhibition Gallery at Home in Usk. This was a first for me in that I don’t usually produce any site specific work.
We investigated two sites known to us. One was Titterstone Clee Hill in the Shropshire Hills AONB, the summit of which is mostly affected by man-made activity from the Bronze and Iron Ages and more recently by years of mining for coal and quarrying for dolerite, known locally as ‘dhustone’
Our second choice was The Blorenge, a hill which sits between the towns of Abergavenny and Blaenavon in South East Wales. and is a SSSI. This is a richly layered hill which has Limestone, Sandstone and Ironstone showing evidence of mining for all. The view from the top of this hill is 360 degrees and it is an amazing place. A place that I think we will return to again and again.
BN: In terms of the evolution of your work, what has changed the most in the way you approach a painting? Is technique an important factor, or do places themselves feed into your imagination?
ZT: Materials can be a huge factor for me in how I create my work. Originally working with acrylic on paper, I made the move to oils on board. After only working in oils for around 4 years, I developed a problem in using solvents and had to step right away from oil paint and back to acrylics. Techniques between the two types of paint have to be taken into consideration. Both are wonderful in their different ways but the approach has to be slightly different.
I am now working to a much larger scale and on canvas – something that I never thought I would get along with, but it’s all about what suits the work that you are doing best.
Painting for me is all about mark making and problem solving. As a painter there is something you are wishing to portray and then you need to work out the best way of interpreting that.
My work constantly evolves and at the current time, I am again working on a slightly different path.
BN: Your latest works have a great deal of ‘white space’ in them, and the colour and form a lot more restrained and muted – does minimalism play a part in this as a deciding factor, or does something else altogether help you decide on how to construct an image?
ZT: My natural tendency is to use a muted palette. This year I have been exploring a more minimal image. I’m not really wanting to make what might be considered a properly constructed composition, with a road leading in or a line of trees to take you to the view point. Again it is that feeling of being up in those high places that I love and I feel these constructions are of less importance to convey that.
My first love is always abstract work – something that I have never found to be quite the right fit for me as I need something to hang my work on but I do continue to push my boundaries a little.
BN: How important are your sketchbook representations to a final work? For many artists the sketchbook appears to give an approximate idea of final form – do you use sketchbooks to aid in remembering a particular place, or do you use it to test ideas, shape, colour and and then form?
ZT: My sketchbook work has never really informed a final piece directly. It is more of an aide memoir to a scene to just give indication of space and place. A lot of intuition and response to mark goes into my work and there has never been a slavish response to a sketchbook.
During the second half of 2022 I have taken some time out. Over the past 6 years I have produced work for one or two solo exhibitions every year. It has been a lot of work and I felt that I needed time to step away and to explore my process and interests.
This has taken me back to small experimental works on paper which I have really enjoyed. It may be that I return to my beloved landscapes with a renewed outlook or it may be that my work takes a step sideways. I will be making some larger scale work soon and will see how that goes.
Your comfort zone is always something you should try and escape from occasionally !
Examples of Zoe’s work, alongside contact and purchasing details can be found at her website: zoe taylor.me
AnMór Studio 