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Gypsum Sand and Mountain Range September 17, 1968, White
Sands National Monument, New Mexico These dunes are in a
remote high desert near where the first atomic bomb was exploded
in 1945. Edward Weston did not make use of the complementary
shapes of the distant Santa Anna Mountains, from where the gypsum
has been eroding for thousands of years. Enough for him was the
ever-changing positive/negative volumes of the shifting sand and
its accompanying shadows. There is nothing to see, in a pictorial
sense, in the middle of the day. This is a place which is wholly
dependent on direct sunlight for drama.
JEREMY TAYLOR [FORTY
YEARS IN PHOTOGRAPHY]
by Karen Close
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Family in Doorway (v. sq+) August 1959, Central Mexico The
adult women seem preoccupied with thoughts beyond where they are,
while the children seem to be present. The gun was not noticed at
the time of exposure and not until the first print was made in
1998. The composition is reminiscent of Paul Strand.

Women and Men Near Market (sq) September, 10, 1959, San Miguel
de Allende, Guanajuato This was the only one of several frames
of this subject where all the figures seemed to form a
compositional unity. I was pleased with this early success at
working with a group of people, and catching them unaware of me as
well. The Rolleiflex is as quiet as a Leica and unobtrusive at hip
level. Raising a 35 mm camera to the eye does not work for me.
This is a strong image for me in the way it shows the different
worlds of men and women, and though not really sharp, reveals a
wealth of texture and tone.

Boy With Head in Hands. (sq) August 1959, San Miguel de Allende,
Guanajuato The directness of the boys emotion-filled gaze
never fails to arrest my attention. How did I make this picture?
My custom was to expose a single frame and then look for another
subject. This was the last of a twelve-frame roll. What was he
thinking? His expression registers more than idle curiosity and
there is no fear. What would I say to him now? Would we be any
closer together? Is he still alive? When Reva Brooks first saw the
contact sheet, she immediately suggested a tight head-and-shoulder
crop and I printed it several times over the years that way.
However, in 1998 I went with virtually the whole frame, trusting
that the strong portrait could easily stand up to the busy
background and indeed, would find its appropriate context there.

Couple, Balcony and Stairs (v), 1963, Montreal, East End My
original project was to photograph walls and occasionally someone
would appear n sometimes yelling at me to get out, and at other
times agreeing or even asking to be included in the picture, thus
instantly changing it into a portrait with the architecture taking
a supporting role. I do not recall ever making a print of this
negative. Today, this is a shocking admission: how could I have
overlooked such a powerful human statement? How I would love to
give them a print, but alas, they and their home are long since
gone.

Balcony, Linoleum and Ladder March 31, 1963, Montreal, East end
Time and the result of ingenuity and living have long ago altered
what was once a perfect architectural grid. The regular rhythm of
bricks and mortar has been softened by layers of grey paint and
the various additions of linoleum and other materials make the
original crisp intention of the structure recede behind a facade
of human expression. This small fragment of mid 20th century
residential housing speaks in a poignant language difficult to
interpret and raises questions we know not how to answer.

Rock, Pebbles and Shadows September 8, 1968, Point Lobos,
California How Edward Weston must have thrilled to discover
such a magical place (five decades before I did), that so
seductively tempts the photographer with black and white film near
by! When I set out to visit this place from far away Montreal, it
was the Daybooks and their reproductions that drew me. I had no
thought of doing anything original in such a storied setting: I
simply wanted a piece of it for myself. What I learned much later
was that, even with E.W. etched on my brain and living in my
heart, I could do nothing other than make a picture of my own.
This image has always seemed "difficult" to me -
slightly off-balance and ominous, even psychological in a way that
Weston never would have done.

White and Grey Rock September 1, 1968, Point Lobos, California Point
Lobos was the richest source of subject matter of any place Ive
ever visited. It was so exciting the challenge became: have faith
that the thing staring you in the face is the best thing to work
on at the moment. What prompted me to select this subject matter
may have been just the texture, tone and line. But, thats all
academic now, because this composition of radiating lines has
provided the basis for a variety of responses, depending upon the
viewer. |
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*COPYRIGHT NOTIFICATION* All contents of articles and
images appearing anywhere on this website are protected by
International copyright law and may not be retrieved, employed or
redistributed in any form without written consent from the artist.
*NEWS FLASH* Jeremy Taylor's book, Intersection: Toronto and the Poetics of Urban Space is hot off the press and available for immediate purchase, directly from the artist! At $75.00 this is a wonderful opportunity to acquire a very special first edition collector's item, of rare value. The book is hard-bound, 12 inches square and contains 43 beautifully reproduced tri-tone plates, with a foreward by Gary Michael Dault. The edition is limited to only 350 copies and each copy is signed and numbered by the artist. Contact Jeremy Taylor by telephone at: 416-467-6460 or by e-mail: jeremyta@sympatico.ca
click the images to view an enlargement.
Your photography is a record of your living,
for anyone who really sees. - Paul Strand
Jeremy Taylor's outstanding abilities in black and white
photography have long been respected and sought after by the elite
of Canadian contemporary photographers and photo-based artists. In
the guild tradition, Taylor has devoted his technique and love of
the medium to the craft, skillfully printing his colleagues'
negatives. His expertise as a master printer receives
international recognition. Now, on the fortieth anniversary of
Taylor's introduction to photography it is time to look at his
personal explorations as an artist. Working quietly on the
sidelines, Jeremy has produced a body of work that makes him the
undiscovered jewel of Canadian photography. 1. His images are the
result of a life long quest for integrity, structure and meaning.
His vision leads him to portray the underlying forms and
interrelations of life. A Taylor photograph is an invitation for
communion with the image, oneself and the universe.
Past visitors to Keylight will recall last
June's feature on Reva Brooks. Taylor produced the modern
edition prints of the images for her June '98 Toronto exhibit at
the Stephen Bulger Gallery. This completed a circle of events
begun thirty-nine years earlier in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
The serendipitous events are compelling. More significantly, they
indicate the sense of interconnection Jeremy's works probe.
Born March 11, 1938 to artist parents his sensitivity
was always apparent. At the age of three he was an eager model for
his father, respected Canadian artist Frederick Taylor. When he
looks into the eyes of these childhood portraits he can remember
the intensity he felt sitting perfectly still, anxious to please
his exacting father. Today, Jeremy credits his ability for deep
meditation to this early training. His teen years set him adrift.
Always sensitive, the family break up when he was twelve augmented
his alienation. At fifteen he was diagnosed as a manic-depressive.
Left to his own devices he sought repair in the lawless chaos of
Montreal's jazz clubs. To the aspiring young drummer, with the
beat of Gene Krupa in his heart, jazz seemed the answer. It was
creative, all accepting, and exciting. At The Black Bottom, a
major Montreal jazz club in the late Î50s and Î60s, it was
possible the communist dreams he had heard his parents preach
could be a reality; yet the actuality was a subculture, subversive
and soul destroying, for his young sensibilities. Unable to
complete high school and sensing a dead end to his talents in the
jazz world, he took up the invitation from his father to come to
San Miguel for a visit. In an attempt to encourage his son in new
directions his father sent him the calendar of art courses offered
at The Instituto Allende. Near the end of the list Jeremy found
photography. He had seen some intriguing photographs on the back
of jazz albums but that was the limit of his previous experience.
Today he still ponders the casualness with which he entered his
life's preoccupation.
In May 1959, shortly after his arrival in San Miguel, he
was introduced to his father's friends the Brooks; he and Reva
began life changing discussions about his aspirations to study
photography. Jeremy purchased Reva's old Rolleiflex and she
mentored him in his beginning efforts. His aptitude was
immediately recognized and The Instituto granted him a scholarship
to further his study. He remained in San Miguel for the rest of
the year. The Mexican series
is from these beginning months; ironically the negatives were
never made into fine art prints until he was reminded of them and
his former mentor in the fall of '97 when asked to make prints for
Reva Brooks Toronto exhibit.
We see Jeremy's keen eye and compassionate presence in
these earliest works from the days of his introduction to
photography in Mexico. Unassuming and self effacing he was an
unobtrusive presence, able to move in close recording the drama of
human reality. In the young Mexican Boy, head
in hands the intense communion between the
photographer and his subject envelopes the viewer with both a
physical and emotional impact: how we all struggle to understand
each other and our circumstances. That Taylor moves so unnoticed
among Mexico's citizens strengthens the candidness of his images.
We all share a common emotional centre as witnessed in Family
Group In Doorway. Jeremy, at twenty-one, recognized
this truth and preserved it for our reflection. This innate
intuitive perception has continued to be his gift as an artist. 3.
When he returned to his native Montreal, in the fall of
59, Jeremy looked at the city with fresh vision. His upbringing
posed many questions. His paternal grand parents enjoyed an upper
middle class lifestyle and encouraged their sons to achieve in
like manner. Jeremy's father was a graduate architect; his older
brother was Canadian industrialist E. P. Taylor. However, Fred
Taylor never practiced architecture; instead he and his new wife
(a first cousin) went to England to study art. Upon their return
to Canada they resolved to get away from their parents middle
class, conservative lifestyle and chose to settle in Montreal, at
the time a centre of artistic and leftist ferment. Jeremy felt
reactive to the contradictions and alienation of his formative
years. In 1960 the young adult constructed his idealism through
the camera lens.
My primary influence comes from my parent's idealism, middle
class upbringing and freedom from violence or financial struggle.
I was imbued with their communist principles of equality and
sharing of Resources, and, of course, their appreciation and
practice of classic artistic values. JEREMY TAYLOR
Modern art burst upon the twentieth century with a
flourish of utopian dreams. One of the movements with particularly
idealistic goals was Russian Constructivism. It has been described
as the "Socialism of Vision"4. "Before Stalin there
was one moment in Russia when advanced art served the power of the
Left not only freely but in the highest spirit of optimism and
with brilliant, if short-lived, results. It happened between 1917
and 1925, when the promise of communism was new and the newness of
art fused with it." 5." They were imagining a perfect
state of explicitness, in which things and the relationships
between them were made clear to human sight as theologians
supposed they were to God, a millennium of consciousness, which
art had the enormous responsibility of bringing about." 6 The
aesthetic leaders of the October Revolution created an art of
expectation for a future of equality and organized energy in which
the arts would act as a transformer. 7. Mayakovsky-Rodchenko
believed "the best medium for achieving this aim was, of
course, photography photography was instant socialism: it was
cheap, real, and its images could be indefinitely repeated,
copied, and distributed. Photography, Rodchenko argued, would
supply the real monuments of the future." 8.
Did the young Jeremy absorb the essence of these dreams
as he listened to his parents and their friends animated
conversations about art and politics? As one examines his body of
work the parallels with constructivism and its vision of arts
ability to illuminate social problems seems key to a full
appreciation of Taylor's meaning.
Roaming the streets of Montreal, with his 8x10 view camera,
Taylor discovered the beauty of a big city as a work of art in
itself, with the promise of greater freedom and an understanding
for his sensibilities. Each artist's vision is influenced by the
history of art that precedes. In Jeremy's architectural images
from the Montreal Walls
series there is strong affinity with Piet Mondrian. "One
cannot read Mondrian's writings without becoming aware of his
desire to integrate in a utopian spirit his theory of art with the
whole of social life and the promise of a more general
emancipation through an advancing modernity." 9. When one
perceives the visual link with Mondrian in Taylor's works, it is a
short leap to accept the conceptual link and applaud the message
as we move out of this millennium. Within the carefully
constructed parameters of his rectangular canvases Mondrian
revealed how the classical ideal of unity could be achieved in
asymmetric and open relationships. The Impressionists and Cubists
had distinguished looking at asymmetry and openness of the whole,
while witnessing day to day human activity, as a new aesthetic - a
way significant of a changing outlook in norms of knowledge,
freedom and selfhood. 10. Consider the parallels between
Mondrian's Broadway Boogie Woogie and Taylor's Balcony,
Linoleum, Ladder. In the former, Mondrian creates a
random play of small units within the symmetry of the large as a
stabilizing force. There is affinity with this organization in the
architectural, textural and pattern elements of Taylor's work.
Just like Mondrian the photographer senses a control in the
opposition of the regular and the random and shows a respect for
variation, balance and interest. The metaphor for a societal
utopia is apparent. The benefit to humanity such an ideal could
achieve is evident in the Couple on Back
Porch: Montreal Streets series. The pair, dressed with
pride, stands confidently posed on their tenement steps. Taylor's
work from this period garnered encouraging recognition. In 1966 he
presented his portfolio to Lorraine Monk at the National Film
Board Stills Division in Ottawa. She made a large purchase of
negatives and prints for the board's permanent collection and then
published images in the books: Canada / A year of the Land
and Call them Canadians. Works were included in Montreal's
Expo 67 exhibit and he had his first solo exhibition at the Loyola
Bonsecours Gallery in Montreal organized by the NFB.
Taylor's quest for spiritual growth has taken him along
many and varied paths. After his marriage in 1968, he and his
wife, Illona Susgin, travelled in their Volkswagen van to
photograph in the southern United States. He met Ansel Adams, Wynn
Bullock and Brett Weston. The meeting with the younger Weston
reinforced Jeremy's admiration for Edward Weston's sense of form
and composition; Taylor was favoured by a visit to the Weston
home, introduced to original Weston prints and enjoyed
photographic discussions with Brett Weston. These conversations
took Taylor into new directions. He was so impressed with Bretts
contact prints done in New York city in the 1940s that he went
right out and purchased his own Deardorff 11x14 view camera in San
Francisco. During this trip, Taylor was also fortunate to study
with Ansel Adams at a workshop conducted in Yosemite Valley,
California. On a spiritual level, he rediscovered yoga, after his
initial introduction in 1964 with Swami Vishnudevananda, and
permanently switched to a vegetarian diet. A profound respect for
truths inherent in natural forms and structures is evident in the
works from this trip. Consider Rock,
Pebbles and Shadows taken at Point Lobos, California.
There are so many levels of seeing for entry into this work and
contemplation of divine creation. This work and others in the
series illustrate the photographer's sense that the joy of the
journey is derived from a love for the questions it stirs. The
images from this period offer no answers. Rather, they are visual
manifestations of questions - questions we all ponder. Jeremy's
photographs confirm Edward Weston's hypothesis: "maybe only a
fragment, but indicating or symbolizing life rhythms." 11.
Significant for a full appreciation of Taylor's artistic
expression is remembering that these are the works of a master
printer editing his own negatives. Accented details and lighting
effects are the conscious choice of the man who first viewed the
image in his lens. There is no intermediary in the technical
expertise. Evidence of the influences of Weston and his mentor,
Stieglitz, is strongest in Gypsum Sand and
Mountain Range, White Sands National Monument in New
Mexico or White and Grey Rock,
Point Lobos, California. If one accepts nature as the standard of
supreme good and beauty, then within nature can be found spiritual
Equivalents, as Sieglitz termed them. Gypsum Sand and
Mountain Range speaks to the cyclic, but also to harmony,
peace and eternity.
continue
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