Mild-mannered, soft-spoken, John Taylor is often seen as the man behind the counter at Eclectic Gallery. As with so many people I meet in the art community, there’s more.
Taylor first came to my attention when his outstanding exhibition of photographs, Great Domes of Italy, was shown at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria about 15 years ago. With a large-format camera, Taylor placed himself directly under the exact centre of many of the most remarkable Renaissance buildings and photographed upward, revealing them as mandalas. This project, sponsored by the Ingram Merrill Foundation of New York, required that he gain admission to the buildings when they were not open to the public. With exacting technique, he printed the large black and white images in a darkroom in Rome. After being exhibited internationally, the subsequent sets of photographs were purchased by the Canadian Centre for Contemporary Photography and also the University of Texas, which has the second-largest photographic collection in the world.
So Taylor has a history and has travelled widely. Living in Victoria since 1992, he has been contracted to create artistic interpretations of St. Ann’s Academy while it was being “deconstructed,” the Memorial Arena in demolition and the Johnson Street Bridge in its last days. One could easily get the idea that he is a photographer of architecture — which he is — but there’s more. I began our recent interview by asking where he was born.
Taylor is from Port Alberni, and in 1967 spent six months in Japan. It was there, and subsequently in Hawaii, that he discovered photography as an art form. Taking this seriously, he then studied at Ryerson University in Toronto, the leading photo school in Canada. As a second-year student, he created a book about Union Station, which was destined for demolition. In no small part due to his timely book, Toronto’s vast railway station was saved. Taylor’s photos went on an extensive tour of the province and were eventually purchased by the Ontario Arts Council.
Next, he spent a summer in New Brunswick working with famous photographer Freeman Patterson. Identifying a need, he talked Mt. Allison University into letting him create a photo department, setting up the curriculum and darkroom. During his two years in Fredericton, Taylor photographed every room in his house, in a composite sequence of transparencies which, when hung in the centre of a gallery, recreated the rooms. This installation toured the world in a National Gallery show and was purchased by Art Bank.
Tired of winter, Taylor went travelling and ended up in Houston, Texas, where he stayed for eight years and found a level of support for the arts he had never known. Two of his photos — of the dome of the State Capitol and the Texas Star inlaid in the floor beneath it — essentially paid for a year of his life there. He photographed the Manned Space Centre in Houston, and created a hand-coloured series of pictures of the rocket engines. And he researched the history of domes at the university library.
He then applied to the Canada Council to photograph the domes of Rome — and was refused. The jury wondered: “Why would you have to go to Italy? We have a great dome in Regina!” A friend encouraged him to apply to the Ingram Merrill foundation, the arts branch of Merrill Lynch, and Taylor received funding to go to Italy for four months.
About that time he married Vijaya, and they moved to Victoria with their new baby, Angelica. With these new responsibilities, he took on more “straight” photography, but always cultivated his creative side. In passing, Taylor mentioned the inspiration of Carl Jung and Lewis Carroll. He is inspired by dreams, he likes working with in-camera double exposures, and seems happiest creating three-dimensional matrices for his images.
In the current show is a layered transparency inspired by Leonardo da Vinci. When asked to photograph the demolition of Victoria’s Memorial Arena, Taylor equated the deconstruction of the building with the deconstructing of people’s memories. “It’s not just a physical presence,” he said, and created a series of double-exposures in “the barn” which evoke lost memories of sports, romantic liaisons and rock concerts.
For the past seven years, the Taylors have been devoted to running Eclectic Gallery. Vijaya is an expert in semi-precious stones and crystals, and every day customers discover their extensive range of jewelry and pottery. The gallery aspect has been expanding, and Eclectic is the local outlet for masters of art Walter Dexter and Pat Martin Bates, the secondary market for many Limners and a flood of upcoming artists.
So now it’s John Taylor’s turn. In Victoria, he’s had solo shows at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and at Open Space, but he says: “I’ve never really had an audience here … and where else do I show?” Eclectic is too small to hold more than a sample of his activities over the years, but you’ll get a taste of what John Taylor has been up to. It’s long overdue.
John Taylor Retrospective, Eclectic Gallery (2170 Oak Bay Ave.,, 250-590-8095, eclecticgallery.ca, May 4 to June 6.
