Run, Hide, Hibernate
Finlay Taylor at Kingsgate Project Space

Opening event: Thursday 8th October 6 - 9pm
Exhibition open: 9th – 31st October 2026

Open Thursday – Saturday 12 – 6pm

You were wondering I think, how long would it take for the garden snail you trod on once to travel a mile. You know, if it had lived, if you had been more aware of the surroundings and those single footed, moisture seeking beings, to travel a mile. Well, if it didn’t stop, just kept on going, it would make the distance in around 33 hours. You won’t watch it happen, of that, I am sure.

I wasn’t thinking about that, more about scale and vision, different vision from eyes moving independently on stalks, well that’s what I’m telling you now. The eyes are on tentacles, can they see in two directions, get two lots of info and process that? I do understand that the lenses developed over millennia are weak and cannot focus what is a monochrome view for them. Further to this the whole body is covered in light sensitive cells that can detect light and shade and movement. It can see a frog or you, but when the frog jumps the snail’s eye-brain process is slow, so for a while the frog has vanished, gone, doesn’t exist (for the snail). So, they might not see your shoe coming down on them, blissfully unaware.

Let’s change direction, just a breath’s distance, here in the place that is just an imagining as I write, will be things. Things bought together, crafted, hung up, stuck down and held for a moment before moving on. Art objects, printed matter, book works, a cabinet of once migratory entities (insects), surfaces blackened by flames and presented just so, totems. What might be called natural objects, snail shells, historical butterfly specimens, saplings as well as diagrams related to natural processes and sci-fi navigation systems that cannot help but tangle up with current thinking about ecosystems, geographies and politics. This supposes an interest in this collection of artefacts by Finlay Taylor but you should understand that artists do not operate in a vacuum, so there are inset in the gallery works by Finlay’s family members who have influenced and shaped his thinking alongside a borrowed image by Rembrandt, his only still life etching ‘The Shell’.

This all adds up to a cauldron of measurements and gauges, tests to see the condition of a moment, what ifs and an idea of how buoyant or ruinous a situation may be.

image: Translated Accounts, snail eaten book.
An exhibition of art using processes of destruction, transformation and reclamation. A mutant library archive arranged into overlapping sections including destruction, transformation, reclamation, natural entropic disorder, decay and growth. Art in the form of altered objects, found and transformed objects, destroyed objects, plant life and preservation techniques.

Participating Artists:

David Bellingham
David Blackmore
Jonathan Callan
Nick Cash (BOOKEND)
Robert Ellis
Matt Hale (BOOKEND)
Michael Hampton
Andrew Macbeth
n[trOP]y
Mark Sowden
Finlay Taylor

www.daniellearnaud.com/index.html

Dinu Li | Katie Deith | Suky Best | Finlay Taylor | Paul Ryan | Paulette Phillips |
Neville Gabie | Dunhill and O'Brien | Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva | Freya Gabie |
Helen Maurer | Richard McVetis | Nicholas Pace | Oona Grimes | Nicky Hodge | Antonio Riello | Katrin Hanusch | Annie Whiles | Katharine Fry |
Marie-France & Patricia Martin | Fran Burden | Abraham Kritzman |
Sophie Lascelles | David Bate | Kim L Pace | Marc Hulson | Nicky Coutts |
Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos and Jan Hogan | Rieko Akatsuka |
Gerry Smith | Heather Ross | David Cotterrell | Kathleen Herbert | Effie Paleologou | Louisa Fairclough | Kate Scrivener

25 Years, the summer exhibition, was due to open mid-June to celebrate 25 years of the gallery. Over 40 artists were invited to reflect on the notion of time (scientific, philosophical, real or imagined) with site specific artworks to be installed in the Georgian space which has housed the gallery for the last 25 years.
Then time stopped… the gallery closed; the artists were confined; some studios had to close; teaching had to be ‘performed’ online; some felt loneliness setting in; others had to multi-task. Many of the artists were left with no time or space to produce new work. A sabbatical for some, harshness for others, a challenging time for all.

Finlay is taking part in the Art in Romney Marsh project this year. The work will be shown at St Thomas à Becket Church at Fairfield.
A new work will be shown, a lithograph with hand additions. Limited to 500 copies the piece will touch on the location and ideas of nature an notions of ownership and care. The work will be freely available from the church during the exhibition but with a quirk to taking a copy.

against Nature
PrintMare project 2

Camberwell Space, London
23rd April – 29th May 2014

This exhibition looked at conditions of our current understandings of geography, or the geo-graphical, natural histories and landscapes. With this, positions to political and ethical notions of our planet as a natural habitat that are unavoidable when picturing anything we may have traditionally termed landscape are explored.
A situation has arisen where scientific notions for example are impossible to divorce from the ideas and views presented. Tim O’Rileys books for example inspect the moon, our notions of it and gaze towards it from the position of earths surface and our efforts to draw it photgraph it film it and reach it. His work Farmers Almanac lists native American names for the full moon rendering quite different associations.

This collection of artist’s works also concentrates on work that uses print. Printed ideas that examine the artists concerns, print used as a peculiarity by the makers to address its audiences and use a history of the medias developments that sustains testing and invention. Here subtle innovations and applications are utilized to great effect to pry open some complexities of looking at nature and print. Within the utilization of print is another recurrence, that of mountains, plants and the moon.

Artists included: Judith Goddard, Franz Ackermann, Helen Chadwick, Oona Grimes, Mark Harris, Bob Matthews,Tim O’Riley, Nicky Coutts, Jo Stockham, Kate Scrivener, Dan Howard-Birt, Mike Marshall, Katsushika Hokusai, Jasone Miranda Bilbao, Michael Landy, Jo Love, Adam Gillam, Paul Coldwell, Serena Korda, Susan Johanknecht, Rebecca Salter, Dunhill & O’Brien, David Cross and Ian Brown.

Finlay had two works in this survey exhibition.

Kyoto City Museum of Art

31 July – 12 August 2012.

6th International Kyoto Hanga 2012, International Print Exhibition Japan/UK

The Exhibition tours to Kitakyushu City Art Museum: November 20~ 25

Gallery Talk : p.m. 1:30~4:30 August 4th at the exhibition space in
Kyoto City Art Museum.

Reception: p.m. 6:00~8:00 August 4th at the Garden Palace Hotel

Finlay is curating with Susan Johanknecht 'BookMare' at the Camberwell Space, London on 12th and 13th July 2012.

Special Viewing: Thursday 12 July, 5 - 7.30pm

BookMare at Camberwell Space comprises an exhibition, performance and discussions exploring how artists have used books as concepts and components in their practice, here often causing disquiet.
Packed into two days, the gallery space will be a focus for the engagement artists invest in books. The exhibition will include works from John Latham’s film and book-event archive, Damien Hirst’s commercially produced ‘I Want To Spend The Rest Of My Life Everywhere With Everyone, One To One, Always, Forever, Now’ and ‘et in arcadia’ by Helen Chadwick. landscapist (an ‘opening’ event) will be performed at the opening night and includes works by Hiromi Tshua, Finlay Taylor, Susan Johanknecht, Kate Scrivener, Alva McKenzie and Eli Zafran. Mark Harris will be creating a new sculptural work for the space which further explores his book object-defense series. Talks will include Arnaud Desjardin, a leading theorist and publisher of artists’ books, and Les Bicknell, whose practice focuses on the book and a contraption for holding and accessing ideas.

Invited artists include:
Les Bicknell, Helen Chadwick, Arnaud Desjardin, Mark Harris, Damien Hirst, Susan Johanknecht, James Keith, landscapist, Latham Works, Kate Scrivener, Finlay Taylor

27th - 30th September 2011
LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING
Artists’ books which question our relationship with nature and the way we live. Curated by Sarah Bodman as part of Impact 7, at Monash University, Victoria, Australia.

Books of all stripes: artists' publishing in the 21st century
State Library
Melbourne Australia
Monday 26 September 2011, 6:00pm - 7:00pm
Artists' books specialist Sarah Bodman presents contemporary works from Europe and further afield.
http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/event/fine-impressions


Mouth Mollusc Butterfly

Finlay's solo exhibition at the Idea Store Whitechapel in London.

23rd June - July 24th 2011.


The Gallery @ Idea Store Whitechapel is pleased to present Mouth Mollusc Butterfly, an exhibition by Finlay Taylor.

A visceral engagement with the pervasiveness of nature is a main concern in Taylor’s work across different media, including photography, printmaking, sculpture, artists’ books and video. A fascination with the natural world is also conveyed through the artist’s use of animals as protagonists in the work.

In his snail drawings, for example, Taylor exposed paper to the elements, allowing the molluscs to eat into the surface and create intricate abstract compositions though this process of nourishment and destruction, emphasising the inevitability of mutability and decay. In Special Effects (2001), the artist treated the paper in such a way as to make the snails spell out short texts, in this case the words of the title.

The overwhelming presence and otherness of nature are themes that recur in more recent work. A series of photographs depict butterflies on people’s tongues, either feeding on saliva or resting. The images manage to fascinate and repulse the viewer with their startling depiction of an unusual proximity between the human and animal, holding our attention despite the initial shock. Other photographs, such as Viva La Vida (2010) and Wet Weight (2011), prey on similar voyeuristic inclinations, with their sumptuous yet morbid depictions of snails gorging on organic matter. Also included are Monarch Flight (2004) and Fall (2011), photographs that manage to capture surreal and disquieting aspects of the butterflies in their habitat.


Idea Store
321 Whitechapel Road
London E1 1BU