Colin Taylor is a landscape painter that much is obvious. But his work is less about the landscape we see and more about the landscape that is experienced. This requires an exploration of a visual language that is not an optical expression, but an emotional one - In truth, it is probably more about,  ‘what I can’t explain, but know to be there and is not restricted by quantifiable ‘fact’ or physicality’.

After studying at Trent Polytechnic (Now Nottingham Trent University), several career episodes in marketing destinations for economic development and tourism he founded his own outdoor pursuits company in the mid 1990’s and started to travel more widely.  He has climbed in Europe, South America and in Asia, and now divides his time between mountaineering and painting.  Each activity influences the other.

In 1778 Thomas West published ‘A Guide to the Lakes of Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire’, which  is generally accepted to have been the first tourist guide within the intention of encouraging people to visit another area, purely for aesthetic reasons.  In his guide, West describes twenty-one locations, which he calls ‘stations’ around the main lakes from whereupon one can ‘obtain the most advantageous view of the land’.  About three years ago, using a contemporary OS map and a copy of the book Colin began to visit each ‘station’ and in response produce a series of paintings and drawings. Some of the paintings in this exhibition are from that series.

In 2008-09 these paintings formed the basis of a 24 month tour across England and Wales supported by the Arts Council taking in venues Canterbury, Denbigh, Kendal, Manchester, Oxford and Buxton.  He is currently represented in New York by the Brenda Taylor Gallery (no relation!) and has a major forthcoming exhibition in Liverpool Cathedral in March 2011.