Neil Taylor

Neil Taylor is best known for his intricate sculptures that explore the essence of form, utilising, as he notes, “the laws of structure (to) reveal space as pure potential”. Taylor creates patterns of geometric shapes comprised of wire soldered together, or manipulated with pliers, rhythmically repeated to form complex three-dimensional objects. Working in both intimate and monumental scales, Taylor’s sculptures begin as meticulous sketches, later progressing to work that sits atop plinths, tables, suspended from wall or ceiling, or, as with his larger-scaled works, freestanding both indoors and out. In addition to wire, Taylor works with welded steel, papier-mâche and found objects, and has previously worked with animation.

Neil Taylor has been exhibiting regularly in Australia and overseas for over forty years and is the recipient of a number of sculpture prizes. He has completed a number of major commissions including sculptures for Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne and Melbourne Art Fair. Neil Taylor currently lives and works in Melbourne.

“Like the artist himself, the works speak with a gentle eloquence, prompting thoughts about the relationship between form and space, mass and volume, geometry and nature, line and structure. Not far below the geometry of their structure, however, they reveal (often in their titles) the artist’s broader humanistic concerns such as the future of the natural environment and what it means to be human and conceptual.

The sculptures are elegant, the eye paces along the metal lines at a slow and steady rate. There is a rhythm to the work that is meditative and engaging. But the works are not purely visual. They are metaphors and analogies for daily life.”

– Niagara Gallery, Sarah Thomas

Both of Neil’s works at Mount Monument are based on elegantly detailed marquettes’. As small works there is something ethereal and ambiguous about them, the connections and joints repetitive but elegant. Scaled up to more architectural proportions, they take on a more defined optical effect as viewed from different perspectives.

Terry Kraus, the talented craftsman, who welded the works together over months during lockdown at the Unitised Building factory, became intimately aware, and enjoyed the transition from complex chaos to simplicity of the unfolding systemic patterns depending on where the observer stands.

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