MICHAEL TAYLOR, Three Pots, 2020
Three Pots is one the most recent paintings in our current exhibition of Michael Taylor’s work in London. For those familiar with Taylor’s paintings there will be elements that appear typical, but one can also see a clear progression and change of emphasis. The familiar distortions to perspectival lines and the pictorial space remain, but the composition is more refined and less cluttered with additional imagery. The emphasis is squarely placed on the titular pots.
The three pots in question all have a personal relevance to Taylor. The elegant blue pot to the rear is a piece of studio pottery from Gunnar Nylund in Sweden that belonged to Taylor’s parents-in-law. The white pot was made by Derek Davies, an English ceramist that Taylor particularly admires and whose work he and his wife Caroline have collected in the past. The green pot is a piece of Korean Celadon studio pottery. Michael’s son now lives in Korea, and Korean culture has informed a great many of his paintings over the last 15 years.
Taylor struggled considerably to keep the composition simple and avoid adding extraneous detail that would detract from the pots themselves. At one point a handful of brass screws were strewn across the surface of the table before they were eventually painted out. This struggle towards simplicity points to a new development in Taylor’s work. The composition is not without its mysteries however. The green pot is placed to the very edge of the table top with a portion of the base hanging over the side giving a precarious tension to the object. Similarly, when the blue pot to the rear is viewed closely, one notices that it appears to hover, neither on nor fully off the table. The viewer is invited to read into that what they will.
The painting is on view for the first time this week at our gallery on Savile Row, London.
MICHAEL TAYLOR (British b. 1952)
Three Pots, 2020
Oil on canvas
32 x 22 in / 81 x 56 cm
