Cello Book and Butterflies by Brian Richard Taylor.
Camera IconCello Book and Butterflies by Brian Richard Taylor. Credit: Supplied/Supplied

Brian Richard Taylor exhibition offers dimension of escape

Lucy JarvisMidland Kalamunda Reporter

Born in Perth in 1934, Taylor said he had always been fascinated with visual arts and his first memory was drawing on a bed head.

“As a child I did not make many close friends and I spent a lot of time musing in ‘secret’ glades and dells in Kalamunda and Lesmurdie,” he said.

“I often experienced the sensation that I was not alone but was being secretly watched by spirit people and/ or perhaps nymphs.

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“These experiences are sometimes reflected in my artworks.”

Taylor said he enrolled in art courses in the 1950s and ’60s mainly in Sydney but found the best mentoring elsewhere.

“I found Desiderious Orban and his studio above Circular Quay and the encouragement he gave removed the scales from my eyes,” he said.

The painter said art had been “a dimension into which I can withdraw” as he took up various jobs, including cadet artist, sign writer and housepainter.

He enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force and served in Thailand then Vietnam in the 1960s and ’70s until he resigned in 1976.

“I now find that art is a stabilising therapy which helps me counter the problems of post-traumatic stress disorder – the ongoing legacy of my serving a couple of tours of the Vietnam War,” he said.

“I am reluctant to offer explanations of my works for many reasons.

“Any ‘meaning’ of an artwork will alter as the viewer’s temperament, experiences and dispositions change and this applies even to the artist’s interpretation.

“The ‘meaning’ of any meaningful work of art is not fixed in one explanation.”

Taylor’s work went on display on April 27 and the exhibition will run until May 29, with the gallery on James Road open from 10am to 5pm Wednesdays to Sundays.

For more information, call 9274 3996 or visit www.gomboc-gallery.com.au.