CURATOR
JOHN TAYLOR

John Taylor has had a distinguished career in arts administration, serving as the founding Director of the Tom Thomson Memorial Gallery in Owen Sound, Ontario, then as Director of the Art Gallery of Northumberland during its major redevelopment in the 1970's, and lastly as Director of the Penticton Art Gallery during the years in which the new Art Gallery of the South Okanagan was brought to realization. In exhibition work, John has mounted shows of national note, including "Marvelous Music Machines" (1977) and "Hungarian Folk Art" (1978-80). John is now a freelance artist, actor and writer living in Vancouver, B.C.


COMMENT

John Taylor: Earthlines - Deadlines - Lifelines is a protest. Not a placard waving, shouting protest. Not a headline grabbing protest. Just a quiet, resolute protest through which seven artists seek to expose inequities, address false loyalties and remind us of our obligations to each other and the earth itself. The artists of Earthlines-Deadlines-Lifelines have all worked for some time in areas of ecological concern and for world peace. It is these concerns which brought them together for this exhibition. It is certainly not new for artists to be socially committed and politically active and art is, naturally, the vehicle through which their concerns are raised and calls for action are made. In Robert Burns' "Ode to a Mouse" we find a phrase which, although removed from that context, is nonetheless applicable here and may serve as the message which the artists wish to convey to their audience: "I'm truly sorry Man's Dominion has broken Nature's social union”