Today we’d like to introduce you to Nick Taggart.
Hi Nick, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in Devon, in the Southwest of England. I was always interested in drawing and went to art school in Devon and then Cambridge. I graduated in 1975 and moved to London, where besides working on my own work, I made illustrations for magazines and book covers. I was interested in doing work for record covers, so I came to Los Angeles– with the intention of staying for three months– in early 1977 when I was 22. I immediately loved it here. I explored the city on my motorcycle, stopping to sit on the street and make drawings. I also visited art directors at magazines and record companies to show them my work. I was given various assignments right away, and I decided to stay. I still live in the same house that I moved into in April of 1977. My studio is in the house, and since the late Eighties, my wife, Laura Cooper, who is also an artist, and I have developed the garden around our house. The garden has been a significant influence for both of us in our work. When I first came here, my work was very much about observing and recording the landscape of Los Angeles, like a visual diary: the light, the vegetation, the architecture, the people. Although I’ve developed many different bodies of work over the years, there are threads that lead back to previous series. My current series of paintings, without intending to, has links to work I did in the early Eighties.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
When I graduated from art school and when I first came to Los Angeles, there weren’t many galleries, and the ones there were didn’t really show young artists, so I made a living working as a freelance illustrator. Later, I taught drawing, painting, and illustration at Cal Arts, Otis, Art Center, and Pasadena City College. These were things I enjoyed, although teaching sometimes took time away from making my own work. However, I was able to make my own work without having to depend on selling it.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My work has gone through many changes over the last fifty years; however, drawing has always been an integral part of it. Up until last year, I’d been working on large, very detailed pencil drawings for about 15 years. Then, in early 2023, I decided to shift in a different direction and began a series of loose paintings using gouache and watercolour on paper. Initially, they were fairly experimental, then gradually, I worked out a system, although I don’t have a preconceived idea of what the finished painting will look like. I make three or four preliminary line drawings based on a landscape or a detail of a period painting that has a composition that interests me. Once I’ve “learned” the image by repeatedly drawing it, I use the most resolved one as a guide as I paint the lines using a single colour on a larger piece of paper. Once the line work is complete, I no longer refer to the original reference material. I choose colours for each of the shapes in an improvisational way, like jazz or a game of chess, where one move opens up a realm of possibilities for the next move. It’s a very different way of working for me, finding larger shapes within the composition and orchestrating where each colour goes is decided intuitively rather than using the logic of representation.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I grew up in North Devon in a small village. A wooded lane next to our house led down to the river. The sea was close by with cliffs and a long sandy beach. Growing up, I enjoyed exploring the countryside with my friends. A lot of those experiences have stayed with me in my work. Natural forms and landscape have been recurring elements in my work. Three of my recent paintings directly reference my time growing up in North Devon. One is based on a painting I’d made on the cover of my school art folder when I was 15, another is a view looking down the lane that went to the river. The third one is an aerial view of Bideford Bay, the estuary, and the River Torridge wrapping around the area where I wandered growing up. I’m grateful for having grown up in such a beautiful part of England. Even though there were things I enjoyed about living in London, it was too dense and urban for me. When I relocated to Northeast Los Angeles, what appealed to me was being able to live on a hillside surrounded by vegetation, not unlike living in Devon, with all the advantages of a major city close by.
Contact Info:
- Website: nicktaggart.com
- Instagram: nicktaggartart
Image Credits
Lily Taggart
Nick Taggart
