Making sense of abstract painting

David Taylor (right) with John Archbold at Fine Arts Whanganui Gallery. PICTURE / SUPPLIED

Land Cycles is an exhibition of abstract works by David Taylor, showing from this Friday at Fine Arts Whanganui Gallery.
The paintings will be on display until June 14.

David has been teaching art at Feilding High School for more than 30 years.
"I taught in the UK for about eight years, then we came out here on exchange to the King Country," he says. "After that we came here permanently.
"The majority of my work is abstract, but abstract is a difficult term.
"The word 'abstract' implies it is non-representational, whereas I think a lot of abstract work has its source or the ideas in something in the real world, rather than just working with the formal qualities of painting."

David says he is interested in those qualities but his work has always been linked to landscapes.
"Sometimes my work becomes pure abstract and perhaps people wouldn't be able to see any links to landscape, though I can see them myself. Other work moves more towards semi-abstract where you can actually see things like the horizon line, sky and so on."

He says you can argue that abstract painting doesn't exist.
"Our brains are always trying to make sense of the world, and if we look at an abstract work most people will try and make sense of it — like what is it? That's the way our brain works. It's an instinctive reaction.
"I've always been interested in landscape, but not so much depicting a particular scene but the way the land has changed in a geological way."

David sees those changes in the eroding cliffs between Castlecliff and Kai Iwi beach.
Although living closer to Palmerston North, David and his family prefer visiting Whanganui for more than just its coastline.
"It's got the river, the markets, it's an art friendly place ... it's a people friendly place."

David exhibited about three years ago in Whanganui at Space Gallery in an exhibition called Lesser Heaven.
It was fellow artist John Archbold who suggested to his colleagues at Fine Arts Whanganui that David hold an exhibition there.

"A long time ago my work was very representational," says David.
"In fact I had an exhibition in Dusseldorf, organised by a gallery in Blackheath, London, that was labelled new realism or photo realism — my work was very different."
When England's elms were dying of disease he did a series of paintings featuring dead elms, and he has painted a series in a South Wales scrapyard of steam locomotives.
"They were high realism, really."

Such realism lost its charm, hence the shift to landscape-based abstract painting.
David has about 12 works on display in the Land Cycles exhibition.