Andy Taylor was born near Whitby in North Yorkshire. His family moved to away when he was very young but spent every summer in Whitby and wild coasts and moorland have always been a big influence on him. His childhood was spent in various places around the Malvern Hills finally settling in Worcester. He developed a deep fascination for natural history. From a very early age he would spend many hours exploring fields and hedges and in the summer the coast and moors around Whitby. When he was five or six his grandmother gave him a set of old (and mostly dried up) oil paints with which he painted scenes on the backs of cereal packets. He painted and sketched all the time, sometimes almost feverishly, once nearly filling a classroom with pictures of sea creatures.

When it came to studying at university his love of natural history took precedent and Andy studied for a degree in Ecology although he also took courses in Art and Art History as he says “to keep my hand eye in”. He graduated from the University of London with an honours degree in Ecology and Entomology.

Andy first came to Cornwall twenty years ago and instantly fell in love with a timeless quality that he had not known since his childhood in Whitby. In Andy’s own words; “time does not stand still here but runs slower and deeper. The echoes of the past are louder.” It was here that he first learned to surf and this has become another huge influence on his life and work. In one of his recent one man shows Andy described how living in Cornwall affected his work: “The wild places of the South West; the moors and the sea, can be violent and dangerous places to be but there can also be a great tranquillity about them especially in winter. It is these almost contradictory qualities, wildness and tranquillity that I try to capture in my work.”

Andy now lives with his wife and young family in Looe. From this base he goes out to paint the North and South coasts of Cornwall as well as Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor. And when the pull of family and career allow he surfs.