The Rural We: Robert U. Taylor
The designer of buildings, clothes, scenery, lighting and costumes will have a solo watercolor exhibition at Hotel on North.
A trained fine art painter, Robert U. Taylor will “return to his roots” for a solo watercolor exhibition at Hotel on North, which opens with a reception on Friday, May 3 during Pittsfield’s First Friday Artswalk. Taylor, who resides in Great Barrington, lived for many years in Manhattan, creating designs for more than 100 productions on and off Broadway, and in theaters across the U.S. He’s won a Drama Desk Award and two Obie Awards and many of his 700 commercials have won Clios. The designer of six restaurants in New Jersey and New York City, and several more in Florida, Taylor’s work closer to home includes designs for the condominiums at Canyon Ranch, Aspinwell and Pontoosuc Lake; the Lenox Marriott, and Berkshire Theatre Festival. He’s worked as a production designer on film projects for Steven Spielberg; films and a six-acre theme park design for LUXOR Las Vegas; amusement park rides for Universal Studios in Florida, Dubai and Singapore; and as VFX art director for the model sets for the films Judge Dredd, Eraser, Event Horizon and Starship Troopers, as well as shot planning for the VFX in a little film called The Matrix.
I’ve lived in the Berkshires for about 25 years, and before that I lived for 25 years in Manhattan. I’m a designer of buildings, clothes, scenery, lighting, costumes. I’ve had three shows on Broadway at the same time. But it was an area that was limited and you’re away from home a lot. I moved into TV and film because you can do that and not have to leave home. I was there [New York City] forever, but once I got up here I stayed.
When I came up here I still had an apartment in the city where my wife and two kids lived, but I was always here working. Eventually we built a house in Great Barrington. I moved here in order to take over a project for Douglas Trumbull, who was the designer for "2001," "Bladerunner" and "Close Encounters." He was working at that time for the Universal theme park, on what he called a ridefilm for "Back to the Future." So I moved to work on that for a year or two and then there was more work here.
I started off studying to be a painter, but now I’m a film designer, a stage designer, and I work in the theme park business. When I paint it’s sort of in between those jobs. Right this second I’m working on artwork that I’m putting together for a hotel chain — Compass for Margaritaville. It’s not the art that you usually find at a hotel, it’s more interesting and unusual.
I paint in watercolors and, in terms of CGI, I’ve become a monster expert at Photoshop. Photoshop is a tool just like a paintbrush; if you get good at it you can do anything with it. I can draw faster by hand than on a computer, so, generally, what I do is I draw something on paper and scan it into a system, then I work on it there.
I tend to focus on winter and autumn. They’re the most colorful seasons for me; spring and summer tend to be monotonously green. There’s black and white but there’s always something else going on, blue shadows on the snow and whatever is out there still working to splash color all over the place. I also paint a lot of stuff from Greece. My wife is of Greek origin and I know Greece better than some places in America. I paint for myself and if I gather enough stuff, I’ll have a show. I don’t paint for a living — I’m basically a designer — but I can paint, so why not?
