Helen Taylor

Helen Taylor, The First of Autumn, Contemporary Art, River landscape

2022

Helen Taylor’s practice follows an interest in belonging, connection, and journeys. She spent her formative years in the Middle East, relocating to England at the age of 16, to attend Hampstead Fine Arts College, London. Growing up in a desert manifested a yearning for a ‘greening’ of landscape and garden. Moving to the relative flatness and sandy lanes of Suffolk provided comfort, fuel for the imagination and ultimately home – an outsider looking in but also residing within. Taylor works partially en plein air, in part from sketches and memory. The works are enveloped in an instinctive, gestural immediacy and equally, are concerned with the graphic, expressive potential of colour. Balancing a romantic impulse with simplification of form, imperfections of application and rawness of material, the paintings are rendered in a loose, textured style. Taylor seeks to reinvigorate traditions of figurative painting and provide the viewer with a shared personal encounter. In 2001, Taylor presented her paintings to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Her work is held in private collections internationally. She has lived in East Anglia for 27 years. ​Exhibitions: ​A Brush with Nature, Artspace, Woodbridge, September, 2022 A Brush with Nature, Artspace, Woodbridge, June, 2023 A Brush with Nature, Artspace, Woodbridge, April, 20024 Under an Eastern Sky, Nicholas Holloway Fine Art, October, 2024