Ross P Taylor

2011-11-08T19:02:00.001-08:00

2011-07-11T04:34:00.001-07:00

2011-06-13T00:10:00.000-07:00

O Night O Trembling Night

O night O trembling night O night of sighs
O night when my body was a rod O night
When my mouth was a vague animal cry
Pasturing on her flesh O night
When the close darkness was a nest
Made of her hair and filled with my eyes

O stars impenetrable above
The fragile tent poled with our thighs
Among the petals falling fields of time
O night revolving all our dark away)

O day O gradual day O sheeted light
Covering her body as with dews
Until I brushed her sealing sleep away
To read once more in the uncurtained day
Her naked love, my great good news.

Stephen Spender

2011-06-12T23:57:00.001-07:00

2011-02-15T03:44:00.000-08:00

Touching base/cloth morning meeting schedule debrief.com

2011-02-07T04:27:00.000-08:00

When will olde become new again?
when will the sea become the protagonist again?
when will men kiss their children?
when will men strike their children?

who pushed the mountains to the background?
where are the flowers?
where are even the plastic flowers?

Gold

2011-02-07T04:04:00.000-08:00

A.R. Ammons

2011-02-07T03:49:00.000-08:00

the hills are alive with indifference,
a trembling, high voltage

who-gives-a-hoot: I am so glad I
feel it so strong: they are not

after me, the hills, nor is anyone:
and I am not responsible to raise

them high or treed or consoled:
mountains could bother them: but I

Don't care: mountains don't bother
them, though, because mountains,

are indifferent, only bigger:
no imperatives are delivered from

the peaks-except, of course it's
hard to get up them and not much

easier to get down: But I don't
have to follow lofty urgings

ignoring which could bring pain
except, perhaps-"don't stand below

high boulders on a deforested slope
in pouring rain": I mean, one does

have to mind the constitutions and
configurations of things: pay no

mind and you may have none to pay:
hills, if not totally indifferent

(and of course, they are) communicate
by ubrupt concretions, not words:

I would rather be communicated with
with words, especially since hills

don't have any, and their concretions
are roughish

2011-02-07T03:28:00.000-08:00

Beuy's standing at Sandycove, (where James Joyce lived before leaving Ireland for Europe)

Paul Noble

2011-02-07T03:00:00.000-08:00

It's odd that I never knew that Paul Noble was born only five miles from where I grew up, I got a chance to see his show at Laing art gallery (Newcastle,UK) while visiting the mother country in December. I think his sculptures are as impressive as his drawings...

http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/laing/thingstoseeanddo/exhibition/2010/10/23/paul-noble-marble-hall/

2011-02-07T02:50:00.000-08:00

2011-02-07T02:47:00.000-08:00

Someone stole Ian Curtis's Gravestone recently, I would prefer his wardrobe...

2011-02-07T02:38:00.000-08:00

2011-02-07T02:35:00.000-08:00

I gave you the idea of me and you lost it

In the words of Rakeem, 'It's been a long time'

2011-02-07T02:25:00.001-08:00

2011 WILL be the year in which I use this blog Goddamnit. Here are some scraps of works that have been in the studio, old and new.

2011-02-07T02:06:00.000-08:00

Which way the wind

Show at Seventh Gallery and other things

2009-05-12T06:31:00.000-07:00

ROCK

Ode to a dung beetle

I wanted to write an ode to a dung beetle
but everyone would think it silly
or repulsive.
So I wrote an ode to a swan floating like
its neighbour swans. Watched from the shore
they look like so many discarded tissues.
Why look, though, when we know all the
allusions, princesses et al.

The dung beetle tunnels lonesome
lacking resonance of swans
but with a necklace of
golden servants cleaning
its russet fur, and a smell
of musk that queens would
kill dragons for with their own
bare hands.
Take that, you princesses!

Take that, you swans!

Ring the bells of resonance
for the clangers they are.
Clean on, golden servant-mites.
Trundle your dung-ball to your
secret den, dung beetle unsung.
This poem shall be for you:
Oh Odious One.

Plane (2008)

2009-03-11T00:10:00.000-07:00

Plane is a paper aeroplane sent via airmail from the U.K to Australia. It arrived and now it is a finished sculpture.

Rock (no.2)

2008-11-30T07:46:00.000-08:00

New Solo show at PROJECT SLOGAN

2008-11-11T11:42:00.000-08:00

Rock, Paper,scissors, (still from dvd)

2008-10-24T04:14:00.000-07:00

Ross P Taylor - Relic (2006)

2008-10-24T04:11:00.000-07:00

2008-09-30T14:04:00.000-07:00

I wanted to put an image of Friedrich's 'Monk by the Sea' as it directly influenced a temporary sculpture/installation entitled 'Relic' created in 2006 (shown above). I was criticised for positioning the car sculpture just off centre in the photo frame as it was proclaimed too 'obvious' a composition. It was however a deliberate tongue in cheek depiction of the sea in the neo-romanticist tradition, only with an old ford mondeo... (silence followed by a cough).

"Monk by the Sea" Casper David Friedrich
(1809) Oil on canvas, 110 x 172 cm"The key to understanding Friedrich's ideas and work is the link between landscape and religion. The majority of his best-known paintings are expressions of a religious mysticism. His landscapes seek not just the blissful enjoyment of a beautiful view, as in the Classic conception, but an instant of sublimity, a reunion with the spiritual self through the lonely contemplation of an overwhelming Nature. Friedrich said, "The painter should paint not only what he has in front of him, but also what he sees inside himself. If he sees nothing within, then he should stop painting what is in front of him." Colossal skies, storms, mist, ruins, scattered tracks of life (ancient altars, wrecked ships) and crosses bearing witness to the presence of God are frequent elements in Friedrich's landscapes.Even some of his apparently non-symbolic paintings contain inner meanings, either religious or political, clues to which are provided either by Friedrich's writings or those of his literary friends.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_David_Friedrich#Philosophy_and_motives'It is splendid, in infinite loneliness by the shore of the sea under a cheerless sky, to stare at a limitless expanse of water; in part, this is due to the fact that one has gone there, that one must return, that one would like to cross over, that one cannot do so; that everything belonging to life is missing and that one hears one's own voice in the roar of the tide, in the billowing of the wind, in the passing of the clouds and in the lonely cry of the birds; in part it is due to a demand which is made by the heart and by the withdrawal of nature...'

Drawings from Ross Paul Taylor exhibition Art Space Tetra (Japan)

2008-09-30T13:43:00.000-07:00

Time eats it's tail, pen on paper (dimensions variable)Rock, pen on paper (A1)

2008-09-30T13:24:00.000-07:00

‘Nothing is small in science and in nature, the least may here lead to the greatest;

2008-09-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

One hundred thousand grains of sand. counted.
By an artist.

I embarked on this task as part of the three month residency at Art Space Tetra.

Why? I hear you ask...

Mathematically, one hundred thousand grains of sand can be calculated using a formula based upon weight. This calculation could be represented using weighing scales and would take a matter of minutes. But can there be value in physically counting one hundred thousand grains of sand? What can be ‘learnt’ from engaging with the material? How far can our understanding be pushed by the physicality and concentration required of such a laborious process?

The project investigated the problematic nature of understanding space and time - represented through the materiality of sand, and the counting process - but also the nature of what we choose to perceive as truths and untruths within our environmental surroundings. Specifically, I am asking what we demand from investigation and process. In artistic practice what significance can be invested in notions of classification and quantifiable results?

What kinds of dialogue could be presented to an audience by investigations from both scientific and artistic methodologies? Can we truly understand one hundred thousand grains of sand as a mass or as a numerical total, or do we need to comprehend each and every grain in order to digest space in its entirety? By embarking on such an astronomical task, I not only tried to begin to comprehend space, but also to question the very foundations of trust within investigation, be it artistic, mathematical or scientific.

What evidence is required to justify the spectator’s trust? Is the presence of the evidence of the approaches even required? In the tradition of a ready-made, perhaps a hundred thousand grains of sand simply is because an artist claims it to be.

The relationship between the two processes addresses the elasticity of the meaning of the number ‘one hundred thousand’. In scientific calculations, it can be a small number, yet in other circumstances is also unfathomable volume. The same can be said for the artistic engagement with the meaning invested in this number: it is an onerous and intimate engagement. The meaning of the number shifts depending on perspective borne from process: grain number one hundred thousand is invested with achievement and completion; through a purely mathematical calculation this final grain does not exist except in abstraction.

The sea, the man and coffee in a can.

2008-09-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

The artist residency was an amazing experience, not only because it was my first international residency but also my first solo show. Throughout my time there, I knew that it would be an interesting experience to collaborate with a Japanese artist on a performance piece, so I asked the gallery curator (Endo Muzuki) if he was familiar with any local video artists, luckily he knew of one (Atsushi Suzuki) who proved to be kind and patient enough to collaborate with me. I spoke very little Japanese and he was equally inequipped in English, therefore the whole process needed some translation, which often seemed more hilarious than frustrating...

Cows of the sea...No chaos of the sea!

The performance took place on Uminonakamichi beach, approximately one hour outside of Fukuoka city. I was amazed and slightly embarrased by the entourage of umbrella holders, translators and coffee providers that came along that day(but to this day will never fully trust the idea of a can of coffee that heats itself up). I even had some staff that stood at the edges of the frame to stop me from moving to far out of the shot. Afterwards we travelled to the home of one of the galleries staff, a two hundred year old house sitting in an ancient village, where inside we sat on tatami mats drinking green tea and eating peaches, and chatted about the stupidity of the Englishman ( or me?)

2008-09-30T12:15:00.000-07:00

Into the sea you and me

2008-09-30T11:42:00.000-07:00

The top image is a still taken from a performance piece entitled 'I knew she'd be back', a collaboration between myself and a Japanese artist by the name of Atsushi Suzuki. The performance was part of a three month international residency at Art Space Tetra,(Japan)http://www.as-tetra.info/

The performance involved myself attempting to control the sea with a sweeping brush, which inevitably concluded in my defeat (and near demise).

2008-09-30T10:47:00.000-07:00