Uncovering the lost murals of E Mervyn Taylor

This is a story of lost - and hopefully found. For months now, a team's been trying to uncover traces of a mural by E. Mervyn Taylor under layers of whitewash on an old wall in Taita, north of Wellington. Artists are working with conservators from Te Papa, using infra-red technology to scan the wall on which Taylor's mural was painted, and analysing paint samples. Bronwyn Holloway-Smith from Massey University's College of Creative Arts, is director of the E. Mervyn Taylor mural search & recovery project. She tells Lynn Freeman that Mervyn Taylor was an artist fascinated by the idea of moving beyond European traditions.