Comment on where you live and how it gives you your artistic inspiration?

I have spent the better part of my childhood in the Southern United States. The rivers and mountains here mimic the slow easy pace of the lifestyle and while the cities are, of course, modern and bustling, the history, the music, and especially the landscape, speaks with a drawl that invites you in for biscuits and sweat ice tea and before you know it you have been here all day.  That is what I want my paintings to do.  It is the depth of this simple beauty that inspires me.

Blue Ridge in Winter Hues, 36 x 60cm, oil

Discuss the importance of Jim Rosen and Janice Williams to your artistic career?

I met both Professors while attending school at Augusta College.  Jim Rosen taught me to paint and Janice Williams taught me to feel the paint.  Both encouraged me to become a professional artist.  My work is profoundly influenced both stylistically and spiritually by the two artists.  At the time, both painters were interested in religious and spiritual subject matter.  Jim was using an oil and wax emulsion that mysteriously “veiled” his paintings in light while Janice’s works were provocative and visceral.  I like to think my best work has a little bit of both of them in it.

Comment on the influence your time in Italy had on you as a young artist?

For me, Italy was a spiritual experience that has never left me.  It was more beautiful than any painting I’d ever seen of it and at the same time just exactly like every painting I’d ever seen of it.  More than anything I think, as a young artist, I gained a great appreciation for where we, as artists, came from.  I came away with a deep respect for the history of art and the why and how art and artists lived and worked through the years.  Because of my experience in Italy, I will always be reverent to the profound influence that religion has had on art and architecture and vice versa.

“Here on the rivers verge, I could be busy for months changing my place, simply leaning a little more to right or left.” Paul Cezanne.  How have your paintings taken inspiration from this comment?

Along the Chattahoochee, I have a few favourite spots that offer many views with varying vantage points, horizon lines, strong horizontals and verticals depending on my position along the bank.  If I move a little forward, back a bit or side to side I have a completely different scene.  If I wait a second the light has changed the colour and shifted the shadows.  I could be quite busy just standing still but, as Cezanne quite famously remarks, “I could be busy for months by simply leaning a little more to the right or left.”

When I’m Most Still, 36 x 36cms, oil

Discuss the use of monotones in “Awakening”

I was asked recently about the “photorealistic” aspects of one of my paintings and whether or not it was intentional.  My intention in each work is to be as much in the moment of the creating as is humanly possible while at the same time connecting with the emotional resonance of the subject; be it a landscape, a cat, or person and what I like to call “creative energies”.  This intention will usually begin as a vision of the piece before I begin and then, as the painting unfolds, will continue until the intention manifests.  Sometimes this has to develop into a somewhat “photoreal” style painting and then more often than not into a more ethereal “impressionist” work.  So, in “Awakening”, I was recreating a cool Summer morning the day after a thunderstorm.  The days after it storms are great days to go out and photograph as the river is blanketed in fog and the logs and trees are rich and dark.  The scene itself is “monochromatic” and so I chose the blue and umber hues to establish the feeling of the scene and this became my visual intention.

Fall colours are renowned in the Appalachian mountain region, expand on this colour in your work to demonstrate the use of fall colour.

Fall colour to me is as captivating and beautiful as the Appalachian Mountains themselves.  Like a tapestry, it blankets the hills from the first chill winds of the Season.  Why, as these leaves wither and die, do they burn like a fire of orange, yellow, red and gold?  Is it a revelry of what is to come, a symbol of nature’s rebirth or their passionate gift to the land that gave them so much for so many years?  And why this warm retreat as the air grows bitter.  I love this defiant contrast.  With so much nostalgia and mystery wrapped up in it, it is no wonder that Fall is a favourite subject of mine and many artists.

The seasons are very distinct in your area take four paintings to illustrate the variation of the seasons.

The seasons are very distinct here, however, the climate is moderate which is one of the reasons I love this area.  We don’t get much snow, though.  Since the river is so symbolic of the passing of time, I have chosen four paintings of it to illustrate the seasons …..

Winter – “Many Rivers To Cross” 40 x 60cm, oil

Spring – “Morning Has Broken” 40 x 40 cms, oil

Summer – “When I’m Most Still” 36 x 36cm, oil

Fall – “River Turning” 36 x 60cms, oil

You have a gallery Taylor Kinzel Gallery explain how the gallery has evolved?

I opened the gallery in 2003 with a long time friend of mine, Mary Kinzel Means.  We had worked together for several years in various galleries and had a shared vision of opening our own one day.  Historic Roswell seemed to be the ideal setting as it already had a couple of art galleries.  Trendy restaurants and interesting little retail shops were nesting in the little houses here and there along the shady sidewalks of Canton Street.  The area was a “buzz” so to speak.  It wasn’t long after we settled here that more and more art galleries opened and, before long, we were an art district.   We knew from the “get-go” that we wanted to represent contemporary art and so we focused our attention on original work by contemporary Southern artists.  While we have had to make some adjustments here and there, the majority of our main artists have now been happily with us for over 10 years.  Over the course of our thirteen years here, we have had the pleasure of establishing amazing relationships with our clients, artists, and the Roswell business community and have enjoyed engaging and watching the area grow into the bustling and beautiful community it has become.  We have witnessed many of our emerging artists garner awards and international recognition.  And we are proud to have been one of the founding galleries of the Roswell Art District, now a thriving quirky little art destination.

Guard Rail, 36 x 36cm, oil

How do the other artists represented in the gallery influence your work?

I think as artist’s we can’t help but be influenced one way or another by everything we experience.  I love to share ideas and experiences with the artists we represent and have learned a lot from them.  For instance, one of our artists shared a particular colour and brand of oil with me and I found it to be transforming while another artist loved cold wax and so I tried that and am now thinking of doing a whole series of landscapes in that medium.  Being an artist and having a gallery does make you very aware of stylistic nuance, so, while I respect and admire all the artists we represent, they have their voice and I have mine.

 Discuss your fascination in barns?

Barns, Barns, Barns!  Yes, so many of the artists here are fascinated with barns….me included. Having spent much of my youth in the country, I associate barns with the freedom and innocence of childhood.  Barns are forts and hideouts and chickens, cows and horses.  And who doesn’t love a good ole role in the hay?   When we first opened our gallery we were next to a crippled old barn with skirts of wildflowers and honeysuckle dressing each side.  It was a timeless reminder of what this quaint little shopping district used to be. Then they tore it down.  Little by little each one of us went over and collected scraps of old barn wood.  I remember talking to everyone about it and how sad it was.  A couple of years later they built a replica of it and now they sell pies.  That energy, though, had an effect on all of us.  We all wanted to paint more barn scenes after that if not for their innate beauty, just to capture that part of our history.  The landscape outside of town is still dappled with barns and so I paint them before they disappear forever and, too, because I simply love the structures.

Presence Remembered, 30 x 40cm, oil

Comment on your thoughts as an artist and the role you play in capturing history.

As a child I loved exploring and found comfort in the solitude.  I would spend hours discovering new places to venture in the woods along the hiking trails behind our house.  As I began to find my voice as an artist, it became clear to me that what I wanted to do was explore again, and so I took the easel outside.  It is where I am most at ease and what I am most thankful for.  My paintings are a just a glimpse of my appreciation for what God has graced us with on this amazing Earth.  I want history to show that I paint from life.  I want it to know that I experience these scenes and that I resonate with the subjects I paint.  I want it to show that within my lifetime, these places and moments exist and hope that it would not be seen as an indifference to the world’s problems but, instead, as gratitude for all it still has to offer.

Contact details.

www.patricktaylorfineart.com

patrickstaylor9@gmail.com

 Patrick Taylor, Woodstock Georgia, USA

Interview by Deborah Blakeley, June, 2016