Stephen Taylor studied Fine Art at Leeds University with T.J. Clark and was taught observational painting by Paul Gopal Choudhury, with subsidiaries in Philosophy and Theology. He then studied perception and technique in John Constable as a post graduate at Essex University and visiting student at Yale.
early work
After two years as Artist in residence at Felsted School, over the 80's Stephen turned from art theory to practice. For a while he taught art history part time and became Head of Painting at The Open College of The Arts. Throughout this time he developed his skill by painting a wide range of subjects to commission.
change
Bereavement in the 90's led him to rethink his career and focus on observed landscape. Between 1999 and 2007 he worked exclusively in a single field in North Essex, producing two shows, at King's College, Cambridge 2002 and Vertigo, Shoreditch, London, 2006.
An altarpiece, The Hospitality of Abraham, for The Church of The Most Holy Trinity, Reading, 2004, is an exception to his landscape work, though it sets redemptive figures within the created world.
now
Currently painting water and developing a method of colour mapping with John Cupitt of Imperial College, a computer scientist interested in colour perception.
Stephen is also interested in nature writing, seeing common cause in directly responding to and re-imagining the natural world through art. |