The Fourth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

HOWARD TAYLOR Top: Light source reverse 1994 Synthetic polymer and oil on plywood 209 x 209 x 9cm Acquired with funds from the Sir Claude Hotchin Bequest Fund 1995 Collection: Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth Courtesy: Galerie Dusseldorf, Perth Photograph: John Austin Below: Hollow 1999 Oil on marine ply panel 120 x 114 x 18cm Collection: Douglas and Magda Sheerer, Perth In his 1995 monograph on the artist,Ted Snell reproduced a graph demonstrating patterns of patronage for Taylor's work. Almost a decade after his retrospective exhibition at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, only four per cent of the work Taylor produced throughout his career was held by public collections.' Though he was feted as one of Western Australia's 'living treasures', fame and fortune were not important. He wanted enough money to make his family comfortable and, though he was by no means a recluse, or the mysterious backwoodsman occasionally profiled in the media, he lived an emphatically local life. Neither was he a sentimentalist or an activist. His son is a sawmiller by trade, who helped his father make grand wooden sculptures from childhood.Taylor was an artist w ho proved absolutely that Modernism and regionalism are complementary, contributing fresh ideas to debates about the primacy of landscape painting in Australia. Taylor was impatient w ith attempts to make spiritual claims for his work. He discussed his practice with 'what you see is what you get' firmness. His forms were spare, authoritative and refined (albeit not without lyricism), and so was the language he used about them: Counter space 1999 Oil on marine ply panel 120 x 118 x 10cm Collection: Howard HTaylor Estate, Perth Courtesy: Galerie Dusseldorf, Perth I consider that my work is the result of practical procedures and when not this, is simply the old fumble, subject to severe critical analysis. The more intangible aspects are not encouraged in making what I make - suspect, known, kept quiet.' Of course, he hints at something else, something so profound and private that even art cannot express it. Taylor strives for and achieves the kind of simplicity one longs for as one gets older - a paring down, a peeling away. This is more than representation; it is a process of self-investigation - literally, the old human fumble. Lynne Seear is Assistant Director, Curatorial & Collection Development, at the Queensland Art Gallery. 107