Anita Taylor, Wimbledon College of Art
Anita Taylor RWA is currently Dean of Wimbledon College of Art and Director of the Jerwood Drawing Prize project. She studied at Mid-Cheshire College of Art (1980-81), Gloucestershire College of Art (1981-84) and MA Painting at the Royal College of Art, London (1985-87). From 1987-88 she was Artist-in-Residence at Durham Cathedral, and Fellow in Painting at Gloucestershire College of Art (1988-1989) prior to returning to be Head of Painting there in 1991 and subsequently Deputy Head of School for Art, Media and Design. She was Vice Principal at Wimbledon (2004-06). In 2004 she was Artist-in-Residence in Drawing at the NSW National Park & the National Art School Sydney, Australia. Awards include the Malvern Award for Drawing 1993, the Hunting Art Prize 2000, the Hunting Art Prize Award for Drawing 1999.
Further biographical information is available at http://www.wimbledon.ac.uk/?cat=50&fn=research&rid=12
from Life Class Sketchbook, No. 1 [Finberg CCLXXIX (a)], A Man Talking to an Oyster-Seller ?circa 1832
![Turner, from Life Class Sketchbook, No. 1 [Finberg CCLXXIX (a)], A Man Talking to an Oyster-Seller ?circa 1832](/britain/exhibitions/drawingfromturner/works/turner/D27378.jpg)
I chose to work from the drawing of the oyster seller in a tiny notebook. I was intrigued by the intimacy of the drawing, the subject and the sense of a flirtatious transaction between the two protagonists as the oysters are sorted, sold and opened for consumption by the oyster-seller. As I explored the innuendo and inference of each mark and line accumulated to imply this vignette of a relationship that Turner had observed, I began to re-appraise what I was seeing. Lascivious intent became more certain, as they appeared to be on shifting ground, poised between terra firma and lapping water as forces begin to overtake them.