George Taylor
Born in Macclesfield, George Taylor moved, aged of 10, to the farm set within its own steep-sided secluded valley in a remote part of Gloucestershire. Here she began working with her father as he tended livestock and managed the woodland, expanding what had been a lifelong enchantment with the natural world primarily as a creative environment beyond landscape and solely as a leisure destination to much more; as a site from which to engage with contemporary issues embodied in experience and place.
At Bretton Hall, University of Leeds, Taylor experimented with sculptural form and constructed environments, introduced by tutor John Penny to the work of Minimalism and Land artists such as Walter de Maria. Her studies culminated in 1998, with the creation of total immersive environments where the viewer was oriented in a single direction through feather-lined passages connotative of our passage through life. It articulated her interest in Gaston Bachelard’s metaphorical evocation of the links between phenomenological architectural spaces and the nuomenal world sensed from within our body and memory and succinctly captured by his phrase ‘intimate immensity’, which became the title of her solo exhibition at Pangolin London in 2018.
Taylor selects, recycles and preens feathers of Victorian taxidermy bird specimens, road casualties, pluckings of chickens and game birds destined for the butchers’ shop to extraordinary effect. The exquisite sheen of metallic iridescence, delicate feathery plumes and rich colours provide a sumptuous palette for Taylor and her objects.
In her use of individual feathers, like a painter might with separate brushstrokes, she builds blocks of colour, shape and tone in geometric frameworks with shimmering and unrivalled sensuality and texture.
Taylor’s work is held in many highly celebrated collections, including the Groucho Club, Murder Me and Pangolin Editions to name but a few.
