Emmanuel Radnitzky or as he was known to the wider world Man Ray once said:"I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive. I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence."
Taylor’s own delight in his choice of the digital medium as the conduit for his art is obvious and he talks with great enthusiasm of its flexibility allowing him to constantly review his works and if he feels it necessary improve or augment them. He glances at one image which we will talk about later, “Kidnap” and expresses a desire to alter the position of the man’s foot for future editions. But aside from improving them he also has plans for future projects based upon those produced previously, he draws my attention to one of my personal favourites among his works “Man Ray Stops Bullets” he sees space for development in the image and talks of laying down a backdrop showing each of the city’s in which the piece’s subject made his home, Paris and New York. Taylor is pleased that as his life moves forward and develops, so can his works and that the themes he has embarked upon as a young man can grow with him, after all in life some ideas will blossom and develop, proving worthy of our nurture and encouragement, whilst others are not quite what we at first thought and therefore not encouraged further. I find it remarkable that this, the most modern and technological of art production methods is in fact probably the most organic.
Below we will take a look at just a few of Taylor’s works and the often unusual and unexpected inspirations behind them.
A Crazed Kidnapper Discovered In Sedgley Home!
I don’t wish to dwell here on the circumstances which lead most of us to gain intimate knowledge of our bathroom tiles! But I know this; most of us at the time would not be at a sufficient level of consciousness to enable us to turn the experience into two extraordinary and intriguing pieces of art.
When Taylor glanced down at an old broken tile at the flat he was redecorating with his partner he saw in the cracked glaze an almost perfectly complete pattern which he traced and reproduced to create his work “Kidnap“. The fact that its lines flow seamlessly from one to another owes everything to the way the glaze had been distorted. Taylor explains to me that the piece shows the night time act of a man kidnapping a woman and dragging her back to his cave for his own wicked purposes. Whilst the work can be viewed on one level as man arbitrarily taking what he wants, when he wants it, it also points perhaps to the longing for the unobtainable woman intimated by the covert nature of the night time kidnap (daylight would have made for a greater level of arrogance). It also points I feel to the primordial urges that remain present in all of us however inconvenient a truth they may be, manifested here in the Kidnapper’s choice of final destination.
In this and in most of his other work, Taylor uses no fixed colour code as he does with the greyhound jackets, preferring in some to use his judgement of what adds depth or meaning to the aesthetic, and in others to adopt a totally random approach, appealing as this does to his love of chance and its power to provide solutions.
After seeing the potential in the first tile Taylor looked around for others in a similar condition. He found one soon enough, this time with a beautiful set of parallel vertical lines resembling a majestic rock face. It took only minor modifications, the smallest alterations however and Taylor had created faces and figures and the lines became marching men, marching towards their ultimate fate and destiny, towards their date with the creator, they are like us all “Servants of Time.” But just as I was ruminating on the depressive nature of the image which resulted from this remarkable osmosis Taylor draws my attention to the presence of a “cheeky” ladies derriere at the rear of the procession, suggesting that although we may all be “doomed” nothing prevents us from having a damned good time enjoying life before our number is called!
Whilst employed in a youth training scheme a young Taylor used to visit the homes of ladies of a “certain age” to check on the safety of their homes. He began to notice that at about the same time every weekday a certain expression of sadness would appear on the ladies’ faces, eyes would glaze over and even the occasional tear would journey down a well worn path. The time of day was 11 am and the ladies in question would be listening to the now infamous “Our Tune” on Radio 2 presented by Simon Bates. These real life stories of tragedy were getting through to the very hearts and souls of these women via the “Power of Radio”.
A startling and serendipitous correlation occurred to Taylor between Picasso’s ‘Weeping Woman’ and these weeping ladies who seemed to be experiencing an empathy with the stories they were hearing, perhaps a shared memory or a resonance with their own past tragedies or those of their loved ones. Taylor uses the rippling sound wave rings emanating from the radio to represent the power that radio has to reach out and change the emotions within us.
I have a print of “Power of Radio” at home, it hangs proudly in my hall but I am even more proud to be able to say that I am the co-owner of the original of the next featured work:
“Heaven in Symmetry”
At the age of 20 and very, very single Taylor, as is the wont of most young men of that age was daydreaming, fantasising about sex. In this particular fantasy the man (I am not sure if the man in question is Taylor ) is standing and has his hand on the kneeling woman’s head whilst she “gives him pleasure.” I raise my eyebrows at this point when he tells me that his first urge was to record the image for posterity, but then I admonish my self and put aside my personal proclivities in deference to his purer more artistic tendencies!
In front of Taylor at the time lay only a pencil and ruler and a voice inside his head told him to record the image purely using straight lines. So he drew straight lines to represent the man’s body and an arm protruding down at approximately 30 degrees to the top of the woman’s head. Her mouth is open to accommodate her lover, who protrudes from his body at 90 degrees. The reason for this graphic and rather geometrical description is to explain the impact of Taylor’s next thought process which was simply to mirror the entire image thus establishing in one action a variation on the male gender symbol “Mars” as the central piece of the work.
Later Taylor rounds off the eyes and creates an “Egyptian” appearance for the women. At the time Elizabeth Taylor’s (no relation) portrayal of Cleopatra still resonated strongly as a sexual image and Taylor recreates it here by using a simple straight line hair design and the stylised appearance of the eyelashes. The title of the image “Heaven in Symmetry” is at once self explanatory and evocative, primarily of course from the perspective of male fantasy, especially when we consider that simply mirroring the original image establishes the presence of two women in the scene. However I believe no one, male or female, could possibly draw any base or lascivious conclusion from “Heaven” indeed the viewer cannot fail to be captivated by the simple truth and beauty of the image and the loving way in which this act is obviously being performed The woman’s embrace is intensely personal and her eyes are gently and lovingly closed suggesting the real presence of affection in her participation.
As our discussion around these earlier works draws to a close Loz checks his Twitter account as is his wont to do. He is currently in “discussions” with a Product Designer from London who is keen to offer Taylor advice on the production side of Demo Pop Art “industries”. Taylor firmly believes his work “translates across all borders” and is keen to get it in front of the general public as we have previously seen. To this end he is very interested in forge the necessary links with people who can make this happen, produce his designs to a high standard and market them appropriately. Taylor and the designer are at present discussing making this “transition” to the market place with the True Love rug, the clock and the other greyhound jacket inspired pieces as well as a new concept, a cylindrical lampshade utilising his recently created image “Positive Race Riot.”
Whilst our conversation is taking place and I am once again heading for the door and my waiting car, the June edition of “Man Ray Stops Bullets” (in blue) is coming off the printer destined for a collector in France. I get a very real feeling for the first time of being somewhere where something very exciting is happening. I get to see a small part of the process I have touched on in both my previous articles, but more than that I realize that there is very much more going on both here and in the mind of my genial host. As if to emphasize this he calls out to me: “ Richard, remember to mention that the images are available from the Saatchi website as well as direct from me!”
I will focus on more of Taylor’s work in later pieces but my next article on Demo Pop Art will focus on the works that Taylor has on display both locally and a little further afield, but for now there is always the Saatchi website!
If anyone reading this blog feels that they have something to contribute to Demo Pop Art and help to carry the torch! Please feel free to email me at gmonkey.rg@googlemail.com.
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