FRASER Taylor's sculptures aren't quite ready. In the workshop of Scottish Opera, Absolute Radio booming in the background (Prefab Sprout followed by Billy Idol), Taylor is examining the works in progress

There are seven in total. All of them are on castors so they can be moved around to be looked at from every angle. Some are figurative pieces, some abstract. A couple curve and bend like the leaves of oversized spider plants (oversized and squared off).

Another is a sensuous curving, then bulging, line of wood.

"I call it ‘the pregnant lady,'" Ed Smith, the workshop manager, tells me.

"I hate the fact that he calls it that," Taylor admits with a mock grimace when I mention this later, "but never mind."

It is early November. The seven pieces – collectively entitled Look and Look Again – will need to be ready for November 28 when they will be unveiled in their new home, the Theatre Royal.

There, they will congregate on the third-level balcony. The spider plants (not their real name) will lean over the railing and beckon visitors upwards in welcome.

In welcome and in celebration. Because Taylor's sculptures have been commissioned to mark the conclusion of the Theatre Royal's 150th anniversary celebrations.

In a way, it's a celebration, too, of Taylor's return to Scotland. After decades away, working in London and Chicago, the artist moved back to Glasgow 18 months ago. He’s now beginning to find his feet in the place again.

"It's such a rich city. There are so many things going on. I'm still nowhere near understanding it all. Amazing new generations of people and conversations."

Taylor, originally from Kirkintilloch, studied at the Glasgow School of Art at the end of the 1970s before decamping to London, and almost immediate success, at the start of the 1980s.

Along with friend the late David Band, Helen Manning and Brian Bolger, he was part of the design collective entitled The Cloth who worked for fashion labels like Paul Smith and Betty Jackson.

Taylor was also involved in the music scene designing record labels and imagery for bands such as The Bluebells and Friends Again.

He has always been a multi-disciplinary artist but drawing and painting are at the heart of what he does.

And it's the reason why the Theatre Royal and its owners Scottish Opera chose to approach him for the 150th anniversary commission.

"Having seen a lot of Fraser's paintings I thought there was a great deal of empathy in how he responds to human beings and performance," explains Scottish Opera's general director Alex Reedijk.

The truth is performance has always been part of Taylor's artistic story.

"I just spent the other day looking at the work I did with The Bluebells,” he explains. “I designed backdrops for their stage performances which I'd actually forgotten about.

"I used to design sets for the Glasgow School of Art's fashion shows too, so, yeah, that history has been there."

Indeed, when he moved to Chicago to teach he was commissioned by the contemporary dance company The Seldoms in the city to create stage designs and visuals. So, the idea of movement and performance is embedded in his art.

Look and Look Again is the latest example of that.

When he was given the commission, Taylor spent time in the theatre drawing and thinking about what shapes would work in the space.

"It's such an amazing foyer. I walked up and down the staircase a million times."

He even met up with David Page, from architects Page\Park who had built the new foyer to work out where to put the new sculptures.

"David was really inspiring. We started to talk about level three and he felt that space needed something to draw up to that level.

"I was very keen on this idea of things being visible from different vantage points as well. That's why some of these forms bend. They will bend over the balcony so you're going to get different glimpses of them as you walk up that stair."

Also made of wood, the sculptures will echo the foyer's staircase which, like the sculptures, were made by Scottish Opera's workshop.

The staircase was an inspiration, Taylor admits. "I think the staircase is incredible," he says, "I love the curves and the materiality of it.” And so, when it came to the sculptures, he says, “I couldn't imagine another material."

Look and Look Again is a tangible marker of the Theatre Royal's anniversary. But it's also a marker of how the new foyer, opened back in December 2014, has revitalised the theatre itself.

"We've always had the most stunning auditorium," explains theatre director James Haworth. "The front of house wasn't bad before, but it's now incredible.

"I love taking people on tours. People can't help being gobsmacked by the place."

The new foyer, he says, has given the theatre renewed energy. It has already been home to exhibitions and Ted Talks, and a community choir now meets there every Saturday.

"It's all about imaginative use of the space," explains Haworth.

It's also part of the city's cultural footprint, so much of which is tucked into this quarter of the city, Reedijk points out.

That includes the Glasgow School of Art, which is where Taylor's own artistic story began. He is naturally gutted by what has happened to the Mackintosh building in the last four years.

"It's devastatingly sad. The first fire was such a shock and particularly poignant to me in that I had donated 10 years of work and it was delivered literally the week before the fire.

"It was in the basement of the Mackintosh and hadn't even been put away in cupboards. It was literally just lying on desks. So, most of it was water-damaged.

"It's just been to the conservator in Edinburgh. Some of the paperwork has just come back and they've done an amazing job.

"But the history of the first fire is now sort of embedded in that work and has changed the work dramatically."

He admits seeing the building being dismantled after the second fire earlier this year has been hard to take. "Such an important building, such an important part of my life. I have no idea what the future is."

For Scottish Opera and the Theatre Royal, at least, the future is looking brighter.

The question is, I suggest to Alex Reedijk, once the party is over is there an inevitable comedown?

Not really, he says, there is always a party to look forward to. In 2022 Scottish Opera will be celebrating its sixtieth birthday, after all.

Fraser Taylor has come home. Reedijk and Haworth, both incomers (from New Zealand and Lancashire respectively) have found a new home. Art and Glasgow are the things that connect all three of them. The city is good at that, suggests Reedijk.

“You can get people to believe in ideas and think: ‘We can do this. I’ve always seen it as a city pregnant with possibility.”

Maybe ‘The Pregnant Lady’ is a good title after all.