IT took a year-long sabbatical from his life in the US that turned into a 14-month extended stay, working in Glasgow, Fife and Shetland, for Fraser Taylor to realise his life has come full circle. And it feels pretty good.

The Glasgow School of Art-trained artist who was a member of The Cloth design group in the 1980s alongside Helen Manning, Brian Bolger and the late David Band, has spent the past 14 years working in America, where he is adjunct professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The yearning to come home and work resulted in an exhibition last year at the Briggait in Glasgow, where he now has a studio and is based for several months of the year, and a new show opening on July 18 at House for an Art Lover.

It celebrates a re-connection with his homeland.

Bodies of Work features bold, colourful large-scale paintings created between 1990 and 2001 at his studio in London, as well as drawings from his spell spent in peaceful solitude, working in Shetland in 2013.

A limited edition suite of four digital prints, made in collaboration with Glasgow Print Studio, are available to buy, inspired by a visit to Florence to view Masaccio's Expulsion out of the Garden of Eden.

"Probably a lot of it has not been seen. It has been shown in different exhibitions all around the world but it's nice to have it contained within the one space," he says.

It opens up Fraser's work, which blurs the boundaries between fine art and design, to a whole new generation from those who remember his designs appearing on record covers of bands such as The Bluebells and Friends Again in the 1980s.

After receiving his Bachelor of Arts in printed textiles from GSA, Fraser continued his studies at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London. It was there he set up The Cloth with fellow Scots David and Brian, alongside classmate Helen.

Their distinctive style graced the covers of records by Spandau Ballet, Altered Images and Aztec Camera, among others, and their large-scale textiles prints introduced them to the fashion world, going on to work with Calvin Klein and Bill Blass in New York, as well as Paul Smith and Betty Jackson in London.

"A lot of that came out of Glasgow because we were there in the late 70s and early 80s when the music scene was erupting," he remembers. "Although they weren't at art school they were our friends.

"Culturally things were so different. Your cultural connections were through socialising and going to bars. We made those connections before we moved to London.

"It was really easy, we were networking but didn't realise that's what we were doing. We were just hanging about in a bar and they'd say, 'Do you want to do our record sleeve?"

The Cloth's work being picked up by the fashion world was unexpected, to say the least.

"We were swept away by it. It happened overnight. We didn't question it because we were young, we were all in debt and working in pubs. It was work: going to New York, going to Paris. We were 23, it was insane.

"We worked so hard, most of us slept for four hours a night. That was all we did, we had so much work on and there was so much socialising to do with all of it.

"When we were young we were very immersed in club culture. I feel that time in the fashion industry when print was so important and visible, we really hit it at the right time. That's gone now. We were really fortunate to have that experience."

Fraser has worked prolifically throughout his career, with exhibitions across the globe, from Paris, Madrid and Sydney to Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles.

His work changed dramatically after the events of 9/11 when his response to the terrorist attack was to stop using colour, a practice that continued for another 10 years.

"It was the second day of my new job when 9/11 happened and downtown Chicago was evacuated because they thought we were going to be the next target. It was a very dramatic experience," he reflects.

"It was pretty horrific; the whole of downtown Chicago was closed for a couple of days. I had a show coming up in Los Angeles and was in my studio churning out these paintings I was very familiar with and I just had to stop in my tracks.

" I felt it was such a profound world event and such a violent act, that my work changed. I started working with black and white, black particularly in an emotional and physical way."

The sabbatical in Scotland brought a burst of colour back to Fraser's work. Inspired by the rolling hills and raw, powerful landscapes, he was reinvigorated.

Some of those drawings will be on show at House for an Art Lover.

His real epiphany moment came when he unpacked artwork that been in storage in London since 2001, when he left for Chicago. Sketchbooks and textiles from his time at GSA and RCA provided an archive of his work from that pivotal period of his life.

"It made me recognise that a lot of the drawings, the subject matter and the physical way I am drawing now were very similar to the way I was doing it back in those days," he says.

"There was something full circle about the whole experience. I didn't anticipate that. It slightly surprised me and alarmed me but then I thought, 'That's OK'."

That work has now been donated to GSA: yet another homecoming for Fraser's artwork.

Fraser Taylor: Bodies of Work, runs at Studio Pavilion, House for an Art Lover, Glasgow, from July 18 to August 30.