Ink dribbles down the stem of a tulip, no longer in its prime but ready to drop its petals. That flower might not have carried off prizes in Chelsea Flower Show, but to the eye of Sarah Taylor, as an artist, it has a more arresting beauty than a fresh blossom just about to break out of its bud. Her imagination is caught by something that is almost humanly imperfect. The ink that dribbles here and splashes in the spray that breaks around the rocks below St Bees Head is not under control, like the feeling of exhilaration in the wind. Perhaps it is the wind that she is painting, just as much as the startling redness of the sandstone that slaps you in the face.
She was very glad to hear Gareth Harrison describe her work as "very graphic", because that reflects her training in Graphic Design and her instinctive judgement of what fits well on a page. Her choice of medium, ink and acrylic, allows her to be carefree, almost slapdash in her approach, much less careful or detailed than an artist who works in water colours, for example. She wants to shake up our normal expectations and capture the personality of places, and the way they make you feel. "If you want to get something exactly as it is, take a photograph," she suggest kindly. It was Wyndham’s great art teacher, the late Alistair Fletcher, who introduced her to ink as a medium, and his influence inspires her still.
Her work, together with paintings by Nanette Madan, photographs by Gareth Browning, and a selection of colourful cushions made from recycled materials by Clare Tyler, forms an intriguing part of the the Fresh Fields Exhibition that runs at Lowes Court until 24th June. Sarah works as photographer for the Lake District Herald and the Cumberland & Westmorland Herald, but she is selling more and more of her paintings at local galleries.